Stumbling
by Last Fading Smile
Summary: In the aftermath of Haven, Olivia Trevelyan finds herself struggling to keep afloat on the tide. While everyone else has placed their faith in her, her own faith lies in ruin, and she stands caught between her old life and a new one she doesn't understand. Doubt, insecurity and loss abound, while the thing she wants the most is the thing she's most afraid to reach for.
1. Stumbling

A/N: I have no idea what I'm doing. What began as a standalone piece has turned into a mosaic of a bunch of different ideas. I was never very good at finding all the pieces. Perhaps it will just be content as a bunch of random thoughts, loosely woven together with a thread of introspection. Perhaps there will be cake. Who knows what the future will bring? Sure as hell not me.

* * *

><p>She wondered if she would ever feel warm again.<p>

Winter had gnashed its teeth relentless upon her bones ever since Haven. 'Haven' indeed; a bitter stain of irony in the back of her throat; a rush and roar of darkness and regret. The weariness of her ordeal had scarcely left her. It was a constant ache, a throbbing fatigue in limbs that weighed of lead, with her frayed and feathering resolve the only thing that kept her moving through the cold debris in its wake. Still at night she would flail out of sleep, gasping for breath as she drowned under a mountain of ice and rock, screaming in the dark at the embers in the fireplace and praying they did not go out. Desperate for someone to find her, just to know she was not alone. In her tower, high up in the sky, no one ever did.

Olivia shuddered and rubbed feebly at her arms, folded tightly across her chest against the wind that tore down through the mountain passes in gusting waves as regular as the oceans of home; a callous mock. Run home, foolish girl, she could almost hear it whisper. Run on back across the sea, back to the secure walls of your precious little noble life, a small life plentiful in everything but the guilt and responsibility that mounted now upon her. And she wanted to. If only for the simple kiss of the high summer sun on her skin that, once golden, was now paling with each day she spent in these frigid mountains.

Still, she could not bring herself to head inside. Not to the Great Hall where everyone looked to her for answers to questions she was busy asking herself. Not to the garden, where the clerics looked to her with a frightening reverence that truth would not abate. Not to the tavern, where everyone looked through her as if she was not there at all. The cold and the sleepless nights were bad enough, but it was the weight of looking people in the eyes that truly exhausted her. Did she even exist anymore? When was the last time someone even addressed her by name, she wondered? Herald this. Inquisitor that. Who was Olivia Trevelyan? Was this what Cole felt, she wondered? There but not there. Strange even amongst friends. A stone thrown into a pond, evidence of her actions rippled across Thedas, but she was long ago sunk. She was all things to all people—a saint, a saviour, a survivor, a story larger than life—but nothing to anyone. All she wanted to be was herself. Someone _to_ someone.

Behind her, the tower door burst open with a squealing clamour of ancient wood and neglected hinges, startling her from her reflection, and out of it stalked the Commander. With both hands gripped about his face, he was oblivious to her as he rubbed at his eyes and paced, back and forth, back and forth across the stone rampart, with the agitation of some caged predator held against his will. A low murmur at first lost in the wind grew into a guttural growl and then a frightening roar, more animal than anything she had ever heard in the wilderness. Hands clenched tight into leather-bound fists, he beat them against his deep, dark frown.

"Cullen!" she alarmed, taking a step toward him on a swell of concern.

With just a word he transformed from howling predator into startled prey and they both froze, his hands fallen away from his face to observe her. "Inquisitor," he replied, voice cracked, broken and tattered, glass in his throat. Olivia winced. The word still felt wrong to her ear; ill-fitting, like a child playing dress-up and stumbling about in shoes far too big for her feet.

"Is…everything all right?" A trite question; clearly everything was not.

A tense moment of stillness passed between them, he almost sizing her up, she hesitant to move lest it scare him off. Then he relaxed just enough to unball his fists and uncurl his scowling lip. "I…yes," he finally said. "Nothing you need concern yourself with."

With a nod and a wan smile, Olivia turned once again away to lean upon the cold stone of the parapet, defeated but choosing not to press him on it. It seemed the way of things ever since she took up that damned mantle. Every conversation was a carefully choreographed show, revealing only as much as it needed to and never more; clear in purpose, maximised in efficiency, devoid of distraction, compartmentalised. Broken down. Set apart. Removed. Just like her.

She waited expectantly for the door creak open behind as he retreated back inside, but rather to her surprise, he joined her there at the wall. Propped upon his elbows, his steel and leathers groaned like weary joints as he arched his back in a deep stretch. Up close, she could see clearly how drawn he appeared; skin ashen with a sheen of sweat across his brow, eyes dark with unrest, hair a gripped and tussled mess. There was a shake in his hands that made her wonder when he had last eaten—come to think of it, she had never seen him take a proper meal in the dining hall. Perhaps noticing her noticing, he coughed self-consciously as he pushed upright and gripped the rock with both hands, stilling them. Olivia made a deliberate effort to look away, if only to stop her own hands from reaching out to smooth down his hair or wipe his brow, or any number of other terrible things they might do if left to their own devices.

"Here barely a fortnight and they're still arriving by the day," she said with a nod down toward the glacial basin, offering it as a distraction to them both.

Where once a simple military camp had sat now sprawled a veritable city of tents that looked to consume in white canvas all of the blue icescape. It had started with Haven, but now refugees from all over western Ferelden looked to the Inquisition for protection, bringing with them their families, their burdens, their hopes and their faith and laying it all upon the Inquisitor's doorstep. As if she didn't have enough of her own. In the absence of a true Divine, they sought divinity in Olivia, and would not hear of her being a pretender, even if Josephine would permit her to tell them the truth, which she had not.

"What must they think when they arrive to see that we're barely more than refugees ourselves?"

"We are a little more organised than _that_," he answered, a little defensively.

Olivia sighed. "Perhaps it's just me, then." A chill overcame her, and she pulled her arms even more tightly against her. It was a losing effort.

"Well…I did say 'a little.'"

Sometimes when she looked at him, there was a bleakness in his eyes that grieved her. What had happened in Kirkwall had rocked all the Free Marches. Her own family had been stalwart allies of the Order through the chaos that followed, feeding and housing a good number of travelling knights when the Circles fell to ruin, but their involvement was incidental. Cullen had been there, on the front line of the first revolt and everything that happened after, everything that had led the world to this mad brink; burdens upon burdens upon burdens. Scars upon scars. He had lived through the events that had been the fodder of dinner stories in her family home. While these days he buried himself under work to distract, the haunted look in his eyes betrayed him.

In that moment though, his gaze was clear and focused, and the scar he wore at his lip all but disappeared into one of his half-smiles—full with warmth—that belied whatever troubles had led him out here. Olivia could not help herself from returning it in kind, or from wishing that he would smile more often. Instead, the Commander's smile faltered as he cleared his throat and looked away.

"I...um...I often forget how far from home you are."

"I'd scarcely been away before now. I once travelled with my father and brothers to Tantervale for the Grand Tourney, many years ago. I was nine or ten I think. My older brother was competing. It was just before he underwent his Vigil. The grand cleric gave him special permission, at my father's urging, of course." She smiled at the memory. It was the last time all of her brothers had been together, before duty scattered had them to the winds for twenty years. "Maker's breath. Has it been so long?" Olivia whispered to herself.

"Your brother is a templar?" There was a sharp edge to his tone, and his whole body seemed to tense up for a moment, gloved fingers straining against leather bonds as they contorted.

"Two of them. Father got his heir, and his spare; the rest of us are for the Maker. My younger sisters are, well, sisters, fully ordained. And I am…a quiet disappointment to my mother," she said with a wry smile. "But I served in my own way, in the archives. Ostwick Chantry has a rather impressive library."

"That's, um…" His eyebrows raised and then just as quickly collapsed into a frown of concentration, head bobbing slightly as he counted. "…A large family," he finished diplomatically.

"Yes, my father takes his duty to the Maker quite seriously." Olivia laughed. It felt good to laugh; even just to talk. Self-indulgent as it may be, talking about her family had the momentary side-effect of reminding her that she had one, once. Before. Perhaps she might again someday.

"Perhaps I should write to thank him for his piety, if it brought you here," he replied with a chuckle, but then quickly added, "On behalf of the Inquisition. Of course."

"Of course." It would be absurd to think he meant anything else.

She sighed listlessly then, missing home fiercely, in the way that all those who have ever taken home for granted must. What she would not trade for just one day. A visit to the evergreens, perhaps, where she had spent so many days of her youth at hunt with her father. The gentle rock of her courser beneath her, sunlight filtering through the impossibly high canopy, the crisp scent of spruce needles crushed underfoot. The stillness and the quiet, the patience and the discipline. Sometimes they would spend hours in one place, in near-perfect silence, waiting for game. With barely a word, he taught her everything he knew—much to her mother's chagrin. How to track, to read the sky, to navigate the unforgiving sameness of the forest. How to hold the longbow, to nock the arrow, to draw the string, when to draw and how far. How to kill clean, so that the animal did not suffer—better meat that way, he said, and better pelts—and then how to clean the kill. In those early years she sported painful blisters on her swollen fingers for days after a hunt, and her arms would ache and burn fiercely from the strain and repetition. "If you want your fingers to get better, Livvy, then _you_ must get better," her father would tell her, unapologetic. The world was just that simple to the Bann. There was nothing that could not be made right with the appropriate amount of effort. And so she did, with patience and discipline and many, many more welts, blisters, bruises, torn muscles and fingernails in the interim.

Now she used all those things her father had taught her to kill demons and darkspawn and far more mundane, far more human varieties of monster. Instead of blisters she now had calluses from overuse, and a dull ache in her shoulder that never left. Her father had taught her to read the sky, but now she could barely look at it. Nor did she have to, as long as the aptly-called anchor pulsed in her palm, in a constant reminder of everything that was wrong with the world. But even if she could not look up, it seemed she could not seem to stop herself from looking back.

"I wonder sometimes if I will ever see home again," she said bleakly. "Even if Corypheus doesn't kill me, things won't ever be the same."

"No," he replied, with a frankness that sunk as deep into her heart as any arrow she'd ever loosed. Cullen frowned. That sadness was starting to creep back into his stare, that faraway-but-all-too-close consternation, that brooding dark. "After Kirkwall, I did not think I would ever see Ferelden again. To be honest, I'm not sure I have. I grew up not far to the south of here and yet…" He shook his head and shrugged; he did not need to finish.

"What happened to the world, Cullen? A Blight, and the war, now…whatever this is?" Olivia could not manage more than a whisper. To speak it loudly made it all too real. "There were children in the courtyard yesterday playing at 'Mages and Templars', with sticks for staves and swords. The world is ending all around them and they make a game of it." A bark of a laugh caught in molasses before it could escape, and her eyes began to well. "And I honestly don't know if that terrifies me, or gladdens me."

"Things were certainly simpler when we were children." Cullen expelled a heavy breath.

"I long for that innocence." Discreetly she flicked away a loose tear. "I have been devoted to my faith, Cullen. I'm not perfect but I've tried to do good, always, and see to the good in others even when it seems unclear. With all that has happened, I thought, how could I not still believe? But Corypheus...what if he tells the truth? What if I got it wrong? If the Maker is up there, what have we done to deserve this? What have _I_ done? What if all that has happened isn't proof that the Maker exists, but rather proof that he doesn't? And what has my life been for? Nothing?" The words—those that did not get stuck in the back her throat—came tumbling out wrapped up in an irrational tangle of dread, strings she could not cut away from her soul.

"Stop," he said, in his Commander voice, stern and forceful, a voice that disavowed disobedience. So focused was she on his voice that she almost didn't notice the hand upon her shoulder, but once she did, she barely heard him at all. "Corypheus is a monster, and his days are numbered, I promise you that. You cannot let the ravings of a madman erode your faith. And you are not 'nothing'. If you can believe only one thing, then let it be that much."

Olivia nodded weakly, her eyes jammed closed against the dam that threatened to break. As she breathed through it, she fixated on his thumb, tracing a small arc back and forth across the curve of her shoulder, tender and just a little too familiar. Fingers pressing, warm and reassuring, firm and commanding, only scant layers of wool and leather separating skin from skin. When at last he withdrew a short lifetime later, it was not a clean break, but rather those gloved fingers sketched a shy path down her back before retreating, marking her as surely as if he was lava to her ice. As she stood there, eyes closed and shivering not from cold, she imagined those fingers slipping down about her waist, and the heat of his body at her back as she was enveloped in his embrace. The kiss of his stubble against her cheek; the tingle of his kiss against her neck. The soft musk of his furs, worn leather cut with polished steel; a scent fierce and masculine but also earthy and comforting, arcane, like the old tomes she once surrounded herself with. Safe. Home.

"Cullen, I—" she gasped, turning her head away so that he could not see her sudden blush. She what? She...found herself unable to be near him without wanting to be ever nearer? She...requested detailed written reports because what he said in the war room was lost to her marvelling at the way his mouth formed his words rather than the words themselves? Or perhaps she should tell him that the only thing that soothed her in the dead of winter night when she was thrown from sleep by fear was the memory of him lifting her out of certain death and carrying her back to the light? Which fool thing was about to fall unfettered from her mouth now?

"I…should not have burdened you with this. I'm sure you have a thousand things to do."

"I—" He sighed shortly, swallowed whatever it was he had thought to say. "Yes. Of course."

Olivia nodded, resolute, and pushed away from the parapet. "Good evening, Commander."

"Inquisitor," he answered automatically.

As she crossed the landing to the courtyard steps, she could feel his eyes upon her back just as hotly as his fingers, and it was all she could do to stop her leaden limbs from breaking pace into a run. Had she not gotten what she wanted? Was that not what had brought her here in the first place, to this specific part of Skyhold, when she could have gone to a hundred different places for solitude? She had brought herself to his doorstep, hoping to garner his notice, hoping for just a moment to be seen as something more, not just to _someone_, but to him. Now as the low, cold sun sunk ever quicker behind the mountains and another long, dark night lay before her, she found that there was a far worse feeling than not existing. Now she found herself fleeing, terrified at the possibility that he might actually see her for what she really was.

Just a fool girl playing pretend, stumbling about in too-big shoes, hoping not to fall.


	2. Faltering

Darkness surrounds, presses down, crushes the air from his lungs. Air that is stagnant, and hangs thick with the stench of blood. More than a scent; a taste, a ringing itch on his tongue that will not wash away, no matter how hard he swallows. Is it his blood? It hardly matters now. All the blood just runs together. All the agony. Aching, searing, bulging flesh. Contorted and wrong, rent from the bone and bursting through skin, twisted and raw. Limbs not made to bend that way. Bitter tears, salty and stinging down his face. They will not stop. How much more can there be inside of him?

Whispers like fingers in his mind, clawing and dragging needles down to his bare soul, leaving cuts that will never heal. He cannot make them out and it is driving him slowly mad. Or not slowly at all. Perhaps he is already there. Why do they keep him alive? Why does he go on surviving? Every moment is a torment and yet he cannot allow himself reprieve. That is his madness. Why not just die with the rest of them? What as he left to live for? Everything is gone. Everyone. Their screams echo through the tower, endless. Clanging of steel, scraping against the stone, a shiver in his spine. He is the last, and they stare at him with their dead eyes, black and cold and empty as darkest night, accusing and so cold they burn right through his battered, bloodied armor right to the bone.

It was supposed to protect.

Why did it not protect?

Maker. _Maker_. Are you there?

Piece by piece they strip him away, layer by layer with their hooks, digging at all that he is, rending him of all he might ever be, until there is nothing left but an empty shell of steel clattered to the floor. Left to rot, forgotten in the rubble of some desolate tower on the lake. Sealed up and nameless for the rest of time, all will forget what happened here. It will become myth, a story around a campfire. A cautionary tale, a legend told to children to make them behave. He is lost; why do not they just leave him? Pain wracks his body. Wounds that will not close, tearing ever wider as he expends himself upon the walls that bind, looking for a weakness.

But the only weakness in this place is his.

They took his family long ago. Carved his childhood out of his brain. Games before dinner with his sisters. Roughhousing with his brother. The name-day sweetbreads his mother used to bake, a special treat to look forward to once a year. Shoeing horses with his father. The quiet of the lake. Smell of dry grass in the summer heat, parched earth drinking up the fall rains. Even the village dog he used to feed scraps to. Every good memory he had brought with him, everything that had sustained him through the years of anxiety and doubt, through the loneliness and the melancholy when faith alone could not nurture him. Everything he had ever loved, taken away and rent asunder, broiled upon demonic flame, offered up on a platter as fodder for the horde. Demons growing fat upon his memories, consuming until they could eat no longer and then disgorging it all, vile and tainted, twisted and broken.

But he held on still to the deepest part, the secret parts, the quiet parts he never spoke out loud.

Until they found those too….

There was another once. The air crackled around her, lightning in the squall, she was dangerous and beautiful and she haunted his dreams for so long he could barely remember a time before her. But she was a distant memory, a tide ebbing on a shore he no longer walked. Desolate and abandoned, there was no room left in him for those old regrets. He has new regrets. Regrets he is yet to make.

And they found her too. Was nothing sacred? Was there nothing inside of him that he could keep whole?

She appears out of the darkness, out of shadow, out of nothing. Her chestnut hair falls about her shoulders, refined and effortless. Her eyes, he has never seen their like, neither blue nor green nor gold but somehow all things at once, like light glinting off the surface of the clearest, calmest lake. Inviting, enchanting, reminding him of home. She brings him back to a place he had thought lost to time. She is the only spot of colour in this eternal grave.

And here she stands only inches before him, draped in a veil of gossamer silks that leave little of her to his imagination, and he tries to look anywhere else than at the outline of her curves. Instead he centres on her face, on her chin, on the snaking scar at the corner of her mouth that trails down her neck; a stunning imperfection he has daydreamed about caressing with thumb and mouth alike. She smiles as he continues to stare, his mind blank of everything except her. Her lips, they are an invitation, a gilt smile glistening in the low light.

"You desire this," she says. But there is a wrongness in her words. When she speaks truly, it is power and it is grace. It is an exaltation on his soul. Divinity. But this is hollow. Soulless. Stripped of her purity. Tainted. It is not her.

"N-no…" he stammers, having to force the word from his willful mouth.

Her smile twists into an ugly grin, something wretched and shallow, and he sees now, sees what she is. Dishonest are those eyes, a vile imitation weaving lies into his mind like smoke, untraceable; they do not belong to her. None of this belongs to her, just another demon poorly wearing her face. It casts the silken veil from its nakedness, hands sliding over the feminine form it possesses in a slow dance. It is not her. It cannot be. Allure. A lure.

"This body belongs to you. These hands are your hands…"

A desirous sigh escapes the lips that are not hers, and he knows it, and yet his traitor body, it aches in a way he had long forsaken, a secret, forbidden, frustrating way. Skin craving skin, hands tingling at the thought of her beneath him, and he feels his resolve unravelling. It is not her, but it will never be her, she is outside his reach. Would it be so awful to just give in? Even a fantasy can be fulfilling. There would be no more fighting. No more pain. He could just…

_Blessed are they who stand before the corrupt and the wicked and…_

"Do not falter," he whispers hoarsely, an echoing command. No. He shakes his head adamantly. "I can't. I won't, I will not…" He falls to his knees, hanging his head with the shame of what he has wrought, of what he has allowed them to do to her, what his foul and fool longing has manifested. She is unworthy of this. And he of her. "I will endure." For her sake.

"Fool boy," he hears then, a voice he know all too well, the same voice that has always been there in the back of his mind, in his dreams, in his waking hours. It is the voice of his doubts, of his fears, of his hate.

Something primal ignites in him at the sound, and he hauls his weary body back to his feet in defiance. An instrument of pure rage, he beats with renewed fury upon the walls that hold him, knuckles bursting open with the effort. Uldred laughs as he emerges out of the shadow. He towers above, soulless eyes shining red in the odd light of this place, grinning with sharpened teeth, caked with gore and strips of flesh left from the feast. Uldred's massive hands settle upon her shoulders, this spectre of his desire, his fingernails like talons that sink into her tender flesh. She is so fragile in the monster's grip, so small.

His mind is on fire, a war raging inside of him. "No!" he screams, throwing the weight of his whole body against the wall; it shimmers and ripples as he is repelled, like it too is laughing. He knows it is not her, not really, but he cannot help himself. "Leave her!"

Uldred cackles on, unabated. "You cannot even comprehend your uselessness. You think yourself strong because you survive. You survive because you are weak. Too pathetic to die with honor like your brothers. You are the consequence of a pride squandered. The power you could possess…" With a mere twist of his fingers, a terrifying lack of effort, Uldred snaps her neck in two. The sound echoes about the chamber, a sickening pop of shattering bone, and she crumples to the ground in a lifeless heap. It is as abrupt as it is final. And her eyes, dishonest and untrue though they are, they too now stare right through him, accusing.

He howls and rears up and tries again, and again, each slamming thud of his body against the barrier reverberating through him, rattling his teeth, blinding him, shaking the fight from his exhausted bones.

"You cannot save her, any more than you could save them. You will fail in this as you have always failed."

His blood runs hot in his veins and that old familiar hate, that bubbling well of pitch and bile in the seat of him ignites in oppressive blue flame. It blisters and it hungers, and as it courses through him it devours all that is good, all that is just, and all he wants in that moment is for the entire world to smoulder and take every shred of magic with it.

But locked there in his cage, all there is for him to do is to seethe and roar.

* * *

><p>Cullen awoke with violence, knees banging the underside of the desk as he thrashed out of sleep, and he clung to the arms of his chair with a white-knuckle grip that seemed the only thing holding him down in a world that was suddenly spinning as if trying to throw him off. His brain throbbed inside his skull with each thunderous beat of his heart, so loud in his ears and so fast, he was sure that he was dying.<p>

A surge of bile rose in his throat, burning as it came until he could taste it on the back of his tongue, and he clenched shut his eyes and stilled himself against the sickness. Mouth watering dangerously, the slightest movement would be disastrous. He allowed himself just the barest of motions, just enough to choke it back down. There he sat for Maker knows how long, wood groaning under his grip, the wind hissing and howling through the cracks in the stone tower, a reminder to breathe, just breathe. Cool, crisp air, clean. Fresh. Free.

_Though the darkness comes upon me, I shall embrace the light. I shall weather the storm. I shall endure._

"I shall endure…I shall endure…"

When the nausea abated, when the drumming in his chest died down, he released his vise over the chair and leaned forward on the desk, rubbing at his eyes wearily. The last report he had been working on still lay before him, and a stack of five new ones had appeared at his elbow. How long had he slept, he wondered? The stiffness and the aches in his back, in his legs, in his head; it felt like hours since he had moved. But the candle had burned down barely at all. Minutes, then.

That was all it took. Just minutes. For the shake in his hands to become too great for him to even grasp a quill. For his mouth to turn to desert and his lungs fill with sand, slowly suffocating him, one painful, shallow breath at a time. For his mind to take him to the deepest of darkest places, where the anger reigned and he did not even recognise his own voice, his own face, his own hands.

His gaze drifted to the drawer at his right. Was it worth all this? One trembling hand reached out, took the handle. No, he thought. And pulled. No, he thought. And his hand reached in, fingers wrapping around the familiar shape. _No_. And his arm withdrew, timorous as it lifted the box out and placed it on the desk. A comfortable heft to it, something once lost but now returned. A missing piece of an impossible puzzle, sitting plainly before him, begging to be restored. Thumb fingering the clasp. Perhaps just a little…

The tiny blue bottle glimmered in its seat, shining, welcoming. He could already taste it on his tongue, sharp at first, growing sweeter as it lingered, as the song grew louder, more divine than any Chant he had ever heard. Sparks in the shadow, a flickering flame, a blaring fire. Warmth and light. Strength and control. Completion. A feeling of wholeness, sorely lacking. An end to the aches, to the chills, to the shakes, to the hunger. Just to be able to rest again, to sleep without dreaming. Without remembering. To be able to look her in the eyes without the stinging shame. Just a taste was all he needed.

As his fingers fumbled over the philter, he was ignorant to all else around him, the world muted against the low hum of expectation, anticipation, emancipation. He did not hear his office door swing open, or the clamorous entrance of the former Grand Enchanter, followed closely by Knight-Lieutenant Braeden with whom she furiously traded barbs, plus a handful of hangers-on on either side of the fight.

"Commander, I apologise for the intrusion, I tried to stop—"

"Tried to silence me, you mean. I make no such apology. This is an outrage, Commander, and I…Commander? I demand action be taken! Commander, are you even listening?"

All at once, the world around him fell into perfect focus; like a glass shattering to the floor, the shrillness of the Enchanter's voice punched through the veil. With a huff, Cullen snapped the lid suddenly down on the lyrium case and pushed it aside, burying it under parchment, out of sight, out of reach. "What?" he growled, a pulse of anger rippling through him at the interruption.

Fiona observed him through narrowed eyes. Suspicion from mages was nothing he was not accustomed to, but hers was piercing. "Your templars have taken two of my mages into custody and refuse to allow me access."

"Right. As is the procedure in dealing with _criminals_, Enchanter."

The mage scoffed. "Are we all criminals, Knight-Lieutenant? Is that why my people have not been afforded even the most basic of rights?"

"Basic rights? You have more rights than you clearly know how to manage!"

The Commander pushed away from the desk, but held onto it inconspicuously as he stood on legs that still felt weak beneath his weight, and then with a sigh turned to the window. It was going to be one of those days, it seemed. Leaning against the wall, he stared blankly out into the icy beyond as Braeden launched into a tirade of his own. The mages in question had been picked up for desertion, he said. They refused to yield to authorities and attacked, a charge that Fiona vehemently denied, but Braeden just grew louder. One soldier was killed and another blinded before a templar managed to suppress them long enough to be bound and dragged back to Skyhold, where yes, they had been imprisoned in the cells, under constant templar guard. The reports had all been filed as per procedure. Probably one of the stack Cullen had not yet reached. If only he had not slept…

If only… He shook his head. No.

"_Crimes_, Enchanter. In most armies just desertion can get you drawn and quartered, but they didn't just desert, those bastards killed a man. You expect us to what, just let them go with a pat on the bum? There, there. Poor magey. Clearly the smouldering corpse is just a big misunderstanding! We'll let his family know you were having a bad day. Let's all forget our troubles with a spot of cake, shall we?"

"And this blatant lack of respect is supposed to set me at ease? I am just to believe the word of one templar with an obvious prejudice against us?"

"Oh, and you're the picture of impartiality, aren't you? There are witnesses!" Braeden exclaimed. "Ask the poor bugger in the infirmary with his eyes burned out of his skull what happened if you won't believe me."

"There is any number of reasons for what might have occurred. No doubt they were provoked, or felt threatened by something your men did," she replied with insolence. "Additionally, both of the mages in question are young and were barely Harrowed when all this started. I would request leniency in light of—"

"When all this started? _You_ started this!"

A storm of voices erupted then, with all of the followers jumping into the fray to defend the actions of both sides. Ten or more different voices all shouting the same recycled rhetoric, arguments made a hundred times over in the face of a hundred different problems. As if the solutions were simple and it was sheer malice that kept things from resolution. It was all the worse now, with a hole in the sky, the Chantry in tatters, the Order corrupted, and a fledgling Inquisition trying to bring change with limited authority. Cullen knew there was unrest in the ranks, but had been hopeful—or perhaps naïve—enough to think the mages might see beyond themselves, or the templars beyond their doctrine. Now it was a three-way fight instead of just two. Us versus them versus us.

It all became a droning din, a buzzing in his ears, and he recalled his conversation with Olivia before she left. Children could hardly be blamed for playing at mages and templars if the mages and templars all about them were seen to be behaving like children. And Cullen was tired of playing arbiter. Was this not precisely the life he was trying so hard to leave behind?

"Enough!" the Commander snarled, drowning out the dissent. "You are all members of the Inquisition now. You are all held to the same standard as any other soldier on the field, regardless of your specific circumstance." He returned to lean on his desk so that he could level his gaze at the group of malcontents before him. "There will be an investigation, as is procedure. If there is any evidence of wrong-doing, it will be handled accordingly. Otherwise, the prisoners will be held, under guard of at least one templar at all times, to be judged by the Inquisitor upon her return. I will not hear argument to the contrary. Is that clear?"

"Aye, Commander," Braeden answered immediately, bowing with a fist over his heart.

"Good. Then back to your duties, all of you. I'll not entertain any more petulant bickering in my office today."

Cullen returned his attention down to the reports as a dozen pairs of feet began a slow shuffle out of the room. Finding Braden's among the pile, he shifted it to the top of the stack. The sooner this went away, the better.

"And what of my request to see them?" Fiona asked, standing defiant.

He sighed heavily. Merely standing seemed too great an effort presently; he was in no mood for this garbage, and had no time for the Grand Enchanter on a good day, if he was honest. "Denied. You are a conscript of the Inquisition. You have no authority over anything. And I will not stand idle and allow you to sow discord among the ranks. If you wish to help the mages here, then I suggest you lead by example, because Maker help me, if you won't, then I will handle things myself. I believe we even have a vacant tower that will serve nicely as an interim Circle, and more than enough knights to guard it. Or perhaps you'd like to take your chances on another deal with Tevinter?"

The Grand Enchanter narrowed her eyes once more, seething. "How quickly you slip into old ways, Commander. The Inquisitor will hear of this."

Cullen barked out an impatient laugh. "Of course she will. I've nothing to hide from the Inquisitor."

"Are you quite sure?" she replied coolly, her indignant stare flicking across his desk to the stack of papers, and the wooden box buried underneath. With that, she turned on her heel and stalked out, slamming the door behind her.

His very armor suddenly seemed like far too heavy a burden to hold up, and he collapsed back into his chair, unable to train his eyes away from the lyrium case just outside his reach. As if on its own, his hand reached out for it, but he regained control and snatched it back, scratching the back of his neck, tugging at his hair nervously. Anything to keep it busy.

How quickly you slip into old ways…

With a growl he opened his desk drawer and swept into it the pile of clutter, papers and all, slamming it shut behind. He could not stay here. Grabbing up the stack of reports, he headed for the door with no real destination in mind. The tavern, perhaps. A stiff drink might take the edge off. Or make things worse. Perhaps the armory, then. The clanging of the blacksmith's hammer always had a soothing effect. Reminded him of his father, a good man. A better man.

Besides, it seemed he was overdue for a conversation with the Seeker.


	3. Dissenting

It had been a long three weeks, and Olivia could barely believe how eager she was to return to Skyhold. A proper meal was in order; some of cook's hearty stew would be delightful, though anything freshly prepared would be a welcome change from the chewy salted meat and stale bread she had been eating for days now. Her jaw could not take much more of the stuff. Also, a hot bath and a stiff sponge to scrub the disgusting film of mire mud from her skin, grime she could still feel in her pores despite a half dozen frosty river baths between there and here. Her nose twitched at the thought of all the rot and decay she must have waded through. Maker, what of the stink? Had she actually managed to scrub it off? What if it lingered and she had she just grown used to it? Maybe she should burn these leathers, just to be sure. Oh, how she longed for the feel of fresh linens, and clean socks for her wrinkled, waterlogged toes. Even the cold would be welcome as long as she was dry. But perhaps the greatest luxury that awaited her was the simple joy of her bed. If she was going to not sleep anywhere, it was infinitely preferable in a soft bed with feathers in her pillow instead of rocks in her back.

So focused was she on these and other great extravagances that it never occurred to her what else might be waiting for her. It was far easier to forget her title out on the road, where the only baggage she carried was a small pack of supplies. As soon as she reached the outskirts of the basin encampment, her mood began to shift. The city of tents was a full third larger again than when she had left. Pilgrims stopped to observe her as she passed by, mothers with their children waving, others falling into deep bows and curtsies. Soldiers on the road stood at attention and saluted, offering earnest 'Your worships'. _Worship. _A heavy word. Merchants, on the other hand, saw her merely as an opportunity and chased after her horse with arms full of goods, peddling all manner of finery and knickknacks, exotic fruits and textiles. One even tried to sell her a beastly looking dog. _Fereldens_. Before she was even halfway up the mountain, she was exhausted of both greetings and apologies.

"This shit never stops being weird," Varric muttered, shifting uncomfortably in his saddle. "Is this an army or a cult?"

"No more strange than the sight of you on a horse, dwarf," Blackwall guffawed. "We should ask Dennet about a pony for you."

"Warden, you'll have to do better than that if you want to hurt my feelings. Maybe include a dig about my mother."

"A lovely woman, by all accounts," Dorian said cheerfully. "Her beard is the envy of all Tevinter."

"See, now that's more like it."

Olivia chuckled quietly, content merely to eavesdrop as the three continued to trade barbs, as had become the way of things through the course of three weeks on the road together. It was an easy group, things never getting too difficult or serious, and any problems they did have they'd soon work out over a mug of ale. Blackwall in particular reminded her in many ways of her eldest brother: tractable, deferential, and just a little too grim, but ultimately a good man. A man of the people. Their beards even matched.

The mirthful mudslinging was drowned out by the sudden eruption of horns blaring through the valley as they came upon the outer gate. "The Inquisitor approaches!" the lookouts yelled, one after another, an echoing signal along the bridge all the way to the Hold proper.

"Quite a welcome. It seems _someone_ is excited to see us," the mage at her back quipped.

"Yes, someone," Olivia muttered, distracted by the unusual host of templar trappings she spied along the bridge, and her earlier anticipation dwindled into something more closely resembling dismay. Such showings of force had been common among the loyal houses of Ostwick after the rebellion, her father's included. What better way to declare one's allegiance than a rigorous display of righteous steel? It had the added benefit of dissuading any wandering apostates from seeking asylum on one's lands. What it could mean _here_, though, was more concerning.

With a slight sigh, she guided the horse to a trot for the final approach, and it seemed her consternation was justified when she was met by the scowling face of the Commander at the gate. He looked better than the last time she had seen him, though his mood had clearly not lifted. Even so, a quiver struck her chest at the sight of him, as if it was full of moths, gambolling about an open flame.

"Inquisitor," he said by way of a greeting.

Even before she had drawn to a complete stop, one of Dennet's stable hands was upon her, reaching for the reigns of her charger. Cullen gave the beast a gentle rub on the neck as she dismounted, a tepid smile breaking through his grim veneer. Olivia, on the other hand, grimaced to find that having firm ground beneath her feet was not the comfort she has hoped, her stiff legs and back crying out as if she had landed on knives.

"Commander." She nodded over her shoulder. "This fanfare—"

"The ambassador's doing," he muttered, his distaste evident. The Commander was a man of austerity, a trait she found appealing, among others. "For all the pomp, I wish it was a _warmer_ welcome," he added, turning to her as the hand led her horse across the yard, following after her companions who attended their own.

She tore the gloves from her aching hands, fingers flexing in the cool air of freedom, and they cracked audibly, though not unpleasantly. "You mentioned some trouble," she replied with a nod, vaguely recalling the terse message from almost a fortnight ago, though at the she had time been too concerned with all the living corpses and giant angry barbarians in the south to pay it too much mind. What concern was it of hers, she'd thought? Someone else would handle things. It was proving difficult to reconcile the idea that people reported to her and not the other way around. "I take it things are not improved."

"To say the least," Cullen replied sourly. "I've done what I can to keep the peace, but the history of mistrust on both sides is not easily overcome. Word of your return reached us this morning, and the mages have closed ranks and gathered in anticipation of the trial. That's making the templars nervous."

"And that's making you nervous," Olivia observed, and he shrugged an admission. "I suppose it would be too much to ask for the world to stop falling to pieces long enough for me to bathe?"

"Um," Cullen scratched at the back of his neck, suddenly looking anywhere but at her. Olivia glanced down at her horse-weary state, scrutinising self-consciously her mud-caked boots and leathers stained with Maker-knew-what. Could it be even worse than she thought? Lovely. "I fear what may happen if this isn't dealt with immediately, Inquisitor." His visage fell then, along with his tone. "The injured officer succumbed yesterday. The wound is raw."

Another sigh escaped her. "Very well, then. Let's have it done."

The Commander appraised her of the situation more thoroughly on the walk to the Great Hall, barely able to mask his contempt for the Grand Enchanter's role in the mutiny as he related the initial event, the confrontation, the investigation, and the fallout. That part went without saying, as every pair of mage eyes they passed were either cast upon them with cold contempt or averted to the ground in shame. Templars loitered about the edges, some with arms folded across their chests, others with hands poised on their swords. Everywhere she looked, she saw division and scorn, and a host of bystanders with no stake in anything just enduring against the tide. A house falling to ruin faster than its walls could even be built. Cullen was right; soon she would hold dominion over ashes.

Inside the Hall, the tension grew thick and suffocating. True to Cullen's report, it seemed the majority of the mages were gathered already, with the stragglers trailing behind her, and the hum of voices fell into silence as she entered and all turned toward her expectantly. Cullen paused at one of the guards and sent a quiet order that might as well have been a shout to retrieve the prisoners from below, and that set the whole room off again. Directly ahead sat the—_her_—throne; a formidable silhouette of wood and leather and iron, it commanded attention. A corona of swords for her weary head. The seat was hard and uncomfortable, every moment in it like being bound to some ancient Tevinter torture device.

Olivia slung her bow and quiver from her back and handed it, along with her gloves, to a servant waiting at the foot of the steps, and then ascended with great labour, the weight of the room pressing down upon her. Hundreds of pairs of incited eyes boring into her, she forced her chin up and ignored the wriggling feeling of her guts trying to escape out of her mouth. Behind it all, a soaring wall of coloured glass radiated in the afternoon sun, the all-seeing eye of the Chantry burning brightly at its peak, and the gaze she felt most acutely was that of holy Andraste, ever judging.

A deep breath to steel herself and she sat down upon that hard seat and waited, feeling suddenly much more naked than merely from the wrist. Grand Enchanter Fiona stood at the head of the congregation of mages, fine elven features rutted with her discontent. On the opposite side was Vivienne, whose cool mask was as aloof and impassive as always, and Olivia became even more keenly aware of her dishevelment and fought the urge to fidget or groom. Better to be thought a mess than be seen to acknowledge it herself, she decided. It seemed in that moment there was nigh a friendly face among sea of them, bar Cullen, who stood at attention at her left hand. Ever the templar, he stared over their heads, chin up, back straight, unfazed by the clear disfavour of the room. Knight-Commander. Protector. Stalwart. Olivia had never been so glad for his presence, though that was not something the Inquisitor could readily confess.

The crowd parted down the centre as the prisoners were escorted in, and Olivia's pounding heart plummeted. Neither one looked old enough to even enlist in a regular army. Both appeared scrawny and bedraggled, sheets of ashen skin draped over bone, their cheeks hollow and eyes sunken into dark wells. Seemingly too weak to even stand, the young girl dropped to her knees at the foot of the stairs, her matted and dirty hair falling down over her face. The boy though stood, albeit shakily, his cavernous eyes echoing anger. So much rage; so much blame. It sent a shiver down her spine.

"Have they not been fed?" Olivia whispered with alarm to Cullen.

"They refused," he replied summarily, then stepped forward to address the room. "Inquisitor; Bastien Renaud and Rosamond Dupont, mages both formerly of the Montsimmard Circle of Magi, conscripted into the Inquisition after the liberation of Redcliffe. Both stand before you accused of attempted desertion, and the consequent deaths of two Inquisition officers."

"Murderers!" came a shout from the crowd.

"Self-defence!" came a reply.

"You will maintain order or be removed," the Commander barked, barely nodding a signal to his officers, who snapped to attention and saluted in understanding. "Inquisitor," he said, softer, turning the proceedings over to her.

Olivia shifted in her seat. Beads of sweat rolled down her neck in the heat of the burning sun behind her. Leather did not breathe. "What have the prisoners to say for themselves?"

Bastien arched his back, standing tall against the shackles that bound his wrists and feet, and with a sneer, spat on the floor at the foot of the steps. A whisper of turmoil rippled through the room, applause against outrage, and the templars who accompanied the pair moved to intervene. Without taking her eyes from the mage, the Inquisitor snapped a hand up, and the entire room fell immediately still at her gesture.

"Do what you will, Inquisitor," the boy croaked, his impertinence having left his mouth barren. It did not take long for him to find a voice in his depths, slow and measured, each word a work of determined fury. "I've no fear of you or what you call justice. I've spent my life locked away already. What have I to fear? My only crime is to want freedom. From them," he nodded at Cullen, "and your precious Chantry. Herald of Andraste? See what I think of your Andraste." Bastien pointed at the sputum on the floor. "You believe me a monster, then I will become one! I'm glad those bastards are dead. I will never regret what I am, or what I did—only that I did not kill more of them! My conscience is clear, Inquisitor. I wonder if you can say the same." It was a practiced speech. She supposed he had had nothing but time.

The Inquisitor's jaw clenched tight and a rush of blood hit her cheeks, but she otherwise remained stoic in the face of the remarks. Her mind went to her father, and his matter-of-fact disposition. A proud man but not arrogant, a wise man but not a diplomat, he took censure and acclaim equally in stride and never let either affect his posture. Passion belonged in private, he would say. But while she reflected and showed nothing of her affront, the room erupted around the young mage, and it seemed for a moment that the only thing that would sate it was blood. Even Cullen's hand drifted to his hip, an unconscious action, one borne of years of dedication to a singular purpose.

"Silence!" the Inquisitor shouted coolly, and waited as her command rippled to the ends of the room. When order reigned, she peered down at the crumpled form of the young woman, Rosamond, now heaving with the regularity of sobs. "And you, girl? Have you anything to say?"

"N-no defense, your worship," the girl whimpered, meekly from behind her curtain of straggly mane.

"Quiet, Rose," Bastien snapped at her. "Do not give her the sati—"

"It's over, love. Let it be," Rosamond said. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She fell into a reverie of regret and wracking sobs, the skinny arms that held her up giving out under her meager weight, and as she fell to her elbows her hands came together in prayer. "Forgive me."

Olivia shot a quick glance to the Commander, who nodded to her, be it in encouragement or impatience, she could not say. In either case, her course was clear. "Leaving aside the attempted desertion that led to the events in question, you have each stood before this office and admitted to your guilt in the murders of two officers of this Inquisition. A capital offence; there is only one response." Olivia swallowed hard, the swelling lump of dread in her throat making it difficult. "Bastien Renaud. Rosamond Dupont. You have left me no choice but to sentence you both to death."

Cheers erupted, punctuated by crying and jeers from the detractors. Vivienne nodded her approval; Fiona's scowl deepened. Rosamond lifted her head and for the first time Olivia could see her face. White tear streaks amongst the filth, full lips dry and cracked; she would have been a pretty young thing under normal circumstances. Her bright blue eyes were timid but gentle, and a wan smile crossed her face. Her mouth made the shape of a "Thank you," though her lamb's voice was lost in the thunder of the crowd.

As the guards hauled the prisoners out, the Inquisitor found herself rising to her feet upon her dais. "As for the rest of you," she shouted over the din. Every soul halted and turned toward Olivia, and a quiet panic set in within her. What was she doing? Hands clenching and unclenching at her sides, her palms were sweaty, fingers still aching from the long ride and from gripping the arms of her seat of judgement. Her back screamed for rest. "You are not here by invitation. You were conscripted because the world demanded your service, and you are not unique in this. We are at war. Look about you. Every soldier in this army is here and serves because this war demands their sacrifice." It tumbled out of her, someone else's words sounded out in a voice she barely recognised over the pounding of her heart in her ears, forceful and confident. Authoritative. The Inquisitor.

"But I offer you now a choice. Stay, and be held to the exact standard as every other conscript of this army, with the same protections, the same opportunities and the same restraints. Stay knowing that the price the Inquisition asks of you may be your very life. Stay knowing that you will be a part of something greater than any one person, any one faction, even any single country. Or leave. Leave knowing that you have been denounced by the nation of Ferelden and will be driven by force from her lands. Leave knowing that you will be hunted by templars who hold no fealty to any order but their own whims. And leave, knowing that if you cross the Inquisition again, that neither will it stay its hand against you. The choice is yours. You have three days to decide, after which I will not tolerate any further insurrection. Your rebellion ends here."

"And when this is over, Inquisitor?" the former Grand Enchanter retorted, arms folded across her chest. "If we stay, and we help you win this war, what becomes of us then?"

Olivia could feel Cullen's templar gaze, a warning. "That is a matter for the eventual Divine. All I offer is an opportunity to prove that you are worthy of her consideration. If that is insufficient, then take your chances with apostacy," she said curtly. Before the enchanter could answer, the Inquisitor turned to her Commander. "Clear the hall and make the necessary preparations. Send word for me when things are ready."

"Of course, Inquisitor."

She nodded and descended from the throne, stalking with purpose to her chamber door. The darkness within enveloped her retreat, and she shouldered her whole weight against it to push it closed. A cold draft whispered somewhere in the upper reaches, the only sound that penetrated her private sanctum. She put her back against the door and slid to the floor, body tensing and bracing against it as if waiting for some expected assault, but it never came. Instead it was just her, just Olivia, hiding in the dark, in the quiet, from what the Inquisitor had executed on the other side. And what she had yet to.

And Olivia sobbed.


	4. Willing

The hand of midwinter gripped the land tightly and seemed it would never relent, even as the season drew to an imminent close. The sun was still a stranger, ornamental; a ghost cloaked in a shroud of bleak grey, whose vain haunt grew only slightly longer with each new dawn. Branches wilted under their burdens of snow, and more continued to fall all afternoon, massive flakes that floated lackadaisically from the sky upon the still air. They stuck in her eyelashes and in her hair, and when she opened her mouth to catch them, they landed cool upon her tongue and tickled as they dissolved into nothing. A huff of steam erupted from her mouth as she giggled, then opened her mouth to capture some more.

"Keep up, Livvy."

"I am," she replied defiantly, despite having come to a standstill among the pines, face to the sky, catching snowflakes.

"Olivia."

Ser Leith chuckled. One of her father's vassals and nearest friends, he often accompanied them on their winter hunts. "Aye, come on, girl! We've an impressive quarry to show off," he said, proudly slapping the hart carcass tied across his horse. "We'll be the toast of Wintersend when we present this beast."

With a sigh, Olivia relented and set off again, trudging through the tracks her father and Ser Leith had made in the snow, so deep in parts that it covered her knees. It made for slow going, the trails they had taken on the way in just a few days ago now swallowed up, but she welcomed the stall. Once they were out of the forest, it would be a clear shot, less than a day's ride to home. Wintersend preparations would be almost complete, the festival proper just two days hence. Ordinarily she relished this time of year. The food and the revelry; the whole city came alive in celebration. Theatre spilled out into the streets, jugglers and acrobats and poets and minstrels with stories both old and new to relate. Traders from all the corners of the world converged on the markets, bringing all manner of bizarre items and delicacies never before seen. The streets sung with joy. This year it would seem more a dirge.

Ser Leith stopped until she was caught up, then slung a massive arm around her tiny waist and picked her up, pinning her against his hip as he might carry a bundle of furs or a keg of ale, effortless. She kicked and squirmed for her freedom, to no avail. "Maker's breath, girl, you're getting heavy. You want to be careful; keep growing up like you are, and my sons will be after you for a wife," he teased.

"She goes to the Chantry after the festival," the Bann said plainly, silencing not just debate but also the mirth of Leith's jest.

"Ah. A shame. My boys could use an arse kicking from a fine girl such as this one." Leith swung her around and set her back down, a cascade of snowflakes flung from her hair as he mussed it with his titanic hand. "Not with her brothers?" he asked, the merriment thoroughly fled.

The Bann shook his head. "They inquired, and I refused. She'll choose her path, but I'll not have her walk that one."

"Why must I go at all? It's not fair," she said, frustration tricking her into a verbal confession that she knew would not be met with cheer.

"Not again, Livvy," her father answered. It was an argument she had already started and lost, and he did not entertain repetition. "You are a Trevelyan. Trevelyans serve the Maker."

Olivia slunk back into formation behind Ser Leith, continued the trek in silence, feeling every bit the prisoner being led towards oblivion, bound by a rope of her own name. She kicked huffily at the snow as she went, as the Bann and Ser Leith continued to speak about her as if she was not there, a tiny heart withering in despair. There would be no more hunts until Harvestmere, at least. Maybe not even then, depending on the clerics' humours. The pleasantly long days of summer normally spent haunting the docks as the fishing boats came and went, or in the fields tending crops of corn and berries, would now seem a painful chore as she eked them out entombed in some stifling chantry chamber, dusting old tomes. That was the veneration the Maker demanded? It seemed to Olivia that he would have better things to worry about than where she said her chants.

The woods soon began to open up as they neared its edge, the terrain sloping down into the winter plain across which she could just make out the shadow of Ostwick looming on the southeastern horizon. They took particular care as they crossed the frozen stream at the forest border. It was treacherous enough to cross under normal conditions, with its rocky bed of stones polished to glass by the ice melt running off the mountains at their back. It sat now as a clear sheet of ice, the snow providing the only traction. Olivia almost slipped a few times as she followed, and broke formation so that she might gain more footing by forging her own path.

It was then that she heard it, a quiet, whimpering bleat, not unlike the call of the lambs in the home yard. Olivia stopped, stilling even her own breathing as she waited, listening over the sound of the horses and the crunching of the snow, the creaking of the sheet ice as they went on ahead. She squinted, straining to hear or to distinguish any shapes in the whiteout landscape, and began to think she had imagined it when she heard it again, somewhere in the brush at the stream's bank. Her father called out again for her to catch up, but she ignored him, instead treading carefully after of the sound.

Olivia was almost upon the beast before she spotted it, the outline of a small, lean red deer lying on its side amongst the weeds and gnarled tree roots. Camouflaged by a mantle of snow, it was clear the animal had been there for some time. One glassy black eye watched intently as she approached, nostrils huffing in alarm.

She froze. "Papa," she called quietly, voice not enough to cover the distance that had opened up between, and so she called again, as loud as she dare without frightening the creature any further. It was enough, and she pointed at the ground before her when he asked what the matter was. Olivia heard him sigh, but he turned the horse about and made is way toward her position, Leith in tow.

"What is it, Livvy?" he asked, following the line of her pointing finger. He grunted an acknowledgement.

"Huh. Looks like a doe, but she's antlers," Ser Leith noted with surprise as he drew up alongside.

"They mate with the western breeds, time to time. Rare, but not unheard of," the Bann said with a nod. "Young thing, though. Second season at most. Barely old enough to be on her own."

"I think she's hurt, Papa," Olivia said, stepping again toward the beast, only a few feet away now.

"Stay back, Livvy. She may spook."

Olivia ignored him, cooing softly as she took another step, then another. The animal's chest heaved rapidly in short, shallow breaths, and its front hoof twitched as Olivia neared, so she took her time, inching ever toward it until she was sure the deer was at ease with her presence. It was clear now, the patch of dark red snow under the doe's back leg, which was twisted at a frightening and unnatural angle. "Shh, it's okay. Are you hurt, little one?" To her father, she said, "We have to help her."

"Olivia, no," he said firmly, shaking his head. "She's for the wolves."

"We can't just leave her!"

"Nature can be cruel as well as kind, Olivia. It is the way of things. It's the Maker's will."

"But I found her. What if the Maker's will was that I help?" she retorted, kneeling now behind the animal. Still it watched her, trembling, whether with fright or pain or cold Olivia could not know, but it seemed evident that all of the fight had gone from it. When Olivia reached out a hand a placed it gingerly on the animal's side, it made no attempt to flee, nor even flinched. The deer's erratic breathing began to slow as she stroked at its neck.

"She has you there, old friend," Ser Leith said with a chuckle.

The Bann sighed, scratching at his beard. "It does not change that we've no means of helping. But, I suppose, we can end her suffering." He folded his arms across his chest. "Make your choice, Livvy."

As she ran her hand over a patch of coarse fur at the beast's shoulder, she was entranced. For all the time she had spent in this forest, hunting deer just like this one with her father, she felt suddenly as if she had never actually seen one at all. As game, they were an abstract concept. They were hoof prints in the mud, rub marks on the tree, a half-eaten bush. They were shadows, flickers in the corner of the eye, the sound of breaking twigs. When she did finally lay her often tired eyes upon them, it was always from a distance, down the shaft of an arrow, through a lens of intense concentration. An echo among a hundred echoes in the chamber of her mind. Or else it was once they were splayed out on the ground, already dead, as her father went about and showed her how to field dress the carcass. Never like this, never so close. Never in-between.

"Like the goats?" she asked.

"Aye."

"And she won't hurt?"

"Less than she does now," her father replied. "It will be quick. But you must make the cut; Leith and I will have to hold her."

Olivia merely nodded in compliance. The Bann signalled to Ser Leith, who tied the horses to a nearby tree and then both joined her at the distressed animal. Her father drew his large knife from the sheath at his belt and held it out to her. Olivia stared at the carved wooden handle, weathered and stained, the old engravings long since worn down to a polished surface from years of use. It felt heavy in her hand, and so huge, her young fingers only just able to close around the grip.

"Quick and clean," he said gravely. The Bann dropped to one knee beside her, and with an arm outstretched to push his daughter out of the way he swung his other leg over the deer's body so that he was straddling the beast and used his whole body weight to hold it down. The animal jerked its head and huffed, big black eye darting in a quiet panic, but quickly settled, too weak to fight, and resigned apparently to its fate.

Leith came about to the right side of her and kneeled. With a remarkable tenderness that seemed impossible from a man of such bulk, he put his hands about the doe's head and pulled it back to expose the neck, clicking his tongue and shushing the animal as he would a child he aimed to lull to sleep.

"There you are, Olivia. One swift cut. Just as the goats."

It was nothing she hadn't done or seen done a dozen times before. The doe's attention remained fixed on Olivia, seemingly oblivious to all else, to the hands around its head or the weight of the Bann on its back, pinning it down. Olivia was similarly transfixed. In her ear, she heard her father's voice urging her on, and she nodded, poising the knife at the spot, just under the jaw, just as the goats. She gulped, gripping her little fingers around the knife, knowing what to do, what must be done. Knowing it would be quick, that it would be over, no more suffering.

She took a deep breath and pressed the blade down. The doe bleated out a mournful sound, a sound that chilled Olivia's blood and stopped her cold, and she dropped the knife in fright halfway through the cut. A wailing cry rung out, long and loud and bellowing with melancholy, underpinned now by a horrific, wet gurgling sound, and with a sudden burst of adrenal might, the deer thrashed and bucked with its entire body, breaking free of Ser Leith's hold and knocking her father backward.

Bright white pin points of light exploded across Olivia's vision as she too was thrown backward, as one of those rare, velvety antlers collided with might into her face, bone against bone. A violent burst of pain erupted in her jaw and rippled outward with ever more momentum until it consumed her in throbbing waves. Somewhere under the pain, under the blindness, under the clanging in her ears, she heard her father yelling her name, but it was so distant he might as well have been a mile away. Cold surrounded her, wetness soaked into her tunic, into the furs about her shoulders that were supposed to keep her warm, but did no such thing. Instead she found herself shivering, her whole body trembling with a sudden chill, her guts churning inside of her with terrible fear.

"Papa," she tried to say, but all that came was misery and blood, the right side of her face gored open, her mouth become useless. An awful rusty taste slithered down her throat, sticky and warm, so thick she began to choke, to cough and splutter.

Hands grabbed at her, pulled at her, pressed down upon her face. Voices yelled back and forth, but she could not make them out, all just noise within the noise, the only sound she could clearly hear was that awful bleating wail. Her head lolled to the side, neck suddenly far too weak to hold up the weight of her agony, and there not far from where she lay was the doe, collapsed to the ground on its broken leg, still staring at her with its huge black eye as the life now slowly ebbed out of its partially cut throat. Olivia held the animal's gaze until her breaths drew shallow, until the darkness closed in, until the world began to fade from view and even the pain began to subside as everything dissolved into the void.

Such was the Maker's will.


	5. Confessing

It had all seemed an elaborate work of fiction. The day in the courtyard, hefting the Inquisitor's blade above her head to the cheers of the assembly like some scene stripped from Varric's imagination, all embellishment for effect. Leadership had fallen to her by default because of the mark on her hand, that was all, and that was a heavy enough load. But that sword was anything but ornamental. One edge, judgement; the other, execution. It was sharp. It could cut. Through flesh, through bone, through sinew. Through life. Through resistance. All with terrifying ease, no respite for hesitation. Once done, never undone.

Prayer used to be a salvation, an escape, a soft comfort when all around were hard edges and jagged turns. It used to be a reflection that eased her savage soul, and lit the dark paths when fear closed in around her, when loneliness was her only companion. It used to be. Yet now as she stood among the candles of the chantry, it was not the light that found her, but the shadow. Not the hope, but the doubt. _Was I right?_ The open arms of Andraste seemed less a welcome and more a snare. _Was __**he**__?_ When she reached out for the Maker, she found neither solace in the Chant, nor any answers to her pleas, but only her own voice, a reply of echoing questions bouncing about an empty chamber. _Is this your will?_ The Maker was departed. Andraste was not listening. She was alone. _And who am I?_ The greatest relief to be found now in the chantry was leaving it, and she let the door thud shut behind her with finality as she stepped out into the garden.

The moon was as high as the Hold was silent, only the barest murmur of footsteps on the battlements above as bored guards struggled to remain awake on their midnight patrols. Firelight spat and crackled, lighting the way back to the Great Hall, but she turned with purpose and went the other way, up the stairs and to the fortifications, and just began to walk, downcast. She was as far from sleep as she had ever been, her mind on fire, her heart clenched in ice, her skin tight and tender and raw from the scrubbing. Three baths later and she still could not get clean. The smell of ash and blood followed after her.

She meted out an ambling pace, following wherever the path led her, conscientious to avoid eye contact with any of the guards she passed, fearful of what she might see reflected there. _Pale blue eyes that will never close, staring forever; piercing from beyond the Veil._ Eventually she met the door leading back into the hall and onto the balcony, where Vivienne slumbered upon her daybed in elegant repose; unfazed, untroubled, a picture of grace. _Gasps and cheers from the crowd; a captivating horror, they cannot look away._ Courtiers milled about below, before the looming throne of spikes from which she dispensed her law, drinking and feasting, preening and pandering, blissful in their witlessness. Olivia swallowed her resentment and hurried past on her toes to silence the creaking wood beneath her feet. _The head thuds as it hits the deck, rolls onto its side; mouth hangs crudely open in an eternal silent scream._ At the far door, she dithered; up or down? Up led to the mages' library, and to the rookery, to the agents who never slept, who watched always, whose secrets spread like roots to nourish every leaf upon the Nightingale's tree of machinations. Olivia went down, careful of her footing on the dimly lit stairs. _Deck grows greasy with blood, creeping under her boots, leaving dark stains._ Circling into the gallery, she realised her folly. Trapped. Spies above, sycophants beside, judgement all around. Out was the only way.

Halfway across the bridge she came to an abrupt stop. All paths behind her led back to the Hall, but to go forward she would have to cut through the Commander's office. He would no doubt be sleeping in his loft, while she prowled about in his office below. Did his office count as his quarters? And how would it appear, entering his chambers in the dead of night? The hawks in the rookery, ever-seeing, ever-watching, waiting to strike and tear the secrets from her flesh. Nervous chains constricted around her insides. The bridge seemed suddenly so high, the air so thin, too thin to breathe, too thin for her fledgling wings. The winter wind thrust against her, pushing her toward the edge, pushing her down, spiralling prey for the raptors. Far below her, the scaffold in the courtyard was a shadowy blight among the moonlight, the wind a murmur of mordant applause. Olivia jammed her eyes shut, breathless for all the blood and ash. Spinning, retching, and then running. Running for the door; she pushed blindly inside and threw it closed behind her, gasping.

"Inquisitor…?"

Wrong way. Olivia jumped, an unexpected yelp escaping as she whirled around. "I'm sorry," she wheezed, looking down, up, anywhere else. Skin on fire. _Breathe_. "I was..." She trailed off, gesturing so vaguely at the east door even she was not sure what it was she was trying to communicate. "I didn't mean to… I'll just get out of your way." She turned and grabbed for the door.

"Wait—!"

Voice like fingers down her back; a shiver, a flutter, her heart in her throat. _Breathe_. She waited.

"You needn't go."

Breathing was a two-way process; she exhaled. "Do you never sleep?"

"Not if I can help it," he replied with a thin jest. "Do you?"

Pushing away from the door once more, she turned to face him. He was gone. The mantle and the steel. The Commander. Stripped of all his layers of armour, the man who stood behind the desk appeared just that, merely _a man_, slim and wiry in his linen shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbow like some labouring commoner; not the commander of one of the largest armies in southern Thedas. It was as disarming as he was disarmoured. Like seeing him for the first time, a second time. A familiar stranger. So much a like that man she had first spied across the field in Haven and felt intolerably drawn to. So much like the man who had pulled her from its ruin when death circled overhead. But so much more real. Too real for her quarrelling mind.

She echoed his smile and made a cautious crossing of the room, breathing in a step, breathing out a step. The tremor inside her ribs began to subside, the twisting knots in her guts unravel, blood begin to cool as she neared him, and yet he seemed to grow uncomfortable as the distance closed, suddenly aware of his vulnerability and unsure of what to do with himself. Taking care to appear unflustered, even as host of untoward thoughts skirted the perimeters, she made her way past his desk to the bookshelf and inspected the shelves as diversion, an attempt to set them both at ease. Olivia smiled at its perfect predictability. Treatises on magic and studies on the demons and the Fade. Volumes on military strategy. Historical accounts of battles as far back as the Divine Age. Several of Genetivi's manuscripts, including a well-worn copy of his account of the Fifth Blight. The full, unabridged text of the Chant of Light, bound in ornate leather, a burning sword embossed upon its spine. With a finger, she reached out and traced the outline of the flames, but pulled her hand back as surely as it had burned her.

"I see her," she said quietly. "When I try to sleep. Every time I close my eyes I see that girl's face." Olivia looked down, at the floor, at her boots. Blood. She looked away, to him. "I hear her voice. She thanked me, Cullen. _Thanked_ me for taking her life."

"I know." He nodded, a brief and sympathetic smile crossing his scarred lips. "You know, it's not necessary that you should perform the task yourself. I have any number of men who—"

"I would not ask some other to do something I was unwilling to do myself. My word, my hand," she said, shaking her head, and then added grimly, "Nor do I particularly want the Inquisition to be the kind of organisation that keeps an executioner in its employ."

Collapsing back into his chair, he folded his arms and reclined. "Fair enough. And… admirable."

"Hardly. But thank you." Among the scattered piles of parchment and reports, she spied upon his desk a cup, a bottle beside it. Not even caring what it was, she grabbed it up and poured herself a generous drink. "It was different with Alexius. The things he did; the things he _would_ have done." Olivia shuddered against the memory of those bleak inevitabilities she had undone, and raised the cup to her lips with hands still trembling. It smelled of spice and fire, tasted of the same, but after the second mouthful, she could stop wincing. She sat at the edge of his desk and judiciously nursed the rest until the feeling returned to her tongue. "I mean, Maker's breath, he was in league with Corypheus. He was objectively guilty. Right? No room for doubt."

"And the guilt of those mages is also unquestionable."

"Is it?" she asked. "Yes; they killed those men. But if I had not forced them here against their wills, then your men would still live. They only wanted the freedom that I stole from them. I sat upon that throne and I declared them to death for a crime that I committed."

"You are not responsible for their actions, Inquisitor. They cast their own lot. Remember that Alexius claimed to do all he did for his son. Good intentions do not equal noble deeds," Cullen countered, and she could but nod a concession. "Besides, there was no nobility in this, only selfish greed. I have seen countless mages like Renaud. The rebellion was an opportune pretense and it would not have ended there. He was a danger."

"But the girl was barely more than a child."

"Who turned her magic against a man and burned the eyes from his head. She was no innocent, whatever her meek appearances and convenient last minute attack of conscience might suggest. Those men deserved justice. You gave it to them. Take heart in that."

His words were unyielding, unforgiving and unassailable, spoken from experiences she could not equal nor even guess at. Everything Olivia knew of mages and of magic came from academia, from Chantry doctrine. Magic exists to serve man, never to rule over him. Foul and corrupt are they who have taken His gift and turned it against His children. Renaud had made no effort to hide his contempt while in chains, what foul and corrupt terror might he have wrought without them? Perhaps Cullen was right. Even the meekest of creatures could leave lasting scars. And when he looked at her that way, so earnest and so knowing, his golden eyes honeyed in the candle light, it was difficult to deny him his truth. Still, her own guilt boiled in her heart.

Olivia smiled. "Then why do I feel like I've done everything wrong?"

Cullen snorted a laugh. "Only be concerned if that worry ever goes away. At least, that's what I tell myself," he said, and reached forward, taking the cup from her hands, his bare fingers like ice as they brushed against her own.

"The further I get down this path, the better I wish that I could go back and do everything over, armed with what I know now. I've made many mistakes." She _was_ a mistake. "I should have heeded your advice in the beginning. All of this would have been avoided had we approached the Templars."

"It is difficult to defend the Order as a better choice anymore." Olivia followed the line of his gaze to the piles of intelligence on his desk. Each one had a singular focus of righteous fire all shaded in red. As she scanned, names and places popping out of the pages, her mind drifted toward her brothers, until Cullen's voice brought her back again. "But perhaps I would have been better equipped to manage them. I must apologise, Inquisitor. The situation should not have escalated as it did. I handled things poorly, and led you into an ambush. I was…" he threw back what remained and poured another drink, "…distracted. I will not to fail you like this again."

"What? Cullen; you do more for the Inquisition than I dare say anyone. You're far too hard on yourself."

"No, it's…" His sudden nerves were evident; leg bouncing, fingers twitching, and that evening on the battlements came back to her, before the Mire. He wouldn't look at her. "There's something you should know, and I should have told you sooner, but with all that's happened, there just never seemed a good time."

Olivia frowned as she listened to his frank admission, each word, each syllable, each individual sound, trying to understand, trying to process something that seemed unfathomable. A good man trapped and betrayed by his own devotion. Pain; madness; death; these were the words that lingered in her mind. A storm gathered inside, concern and compassion and acceptance and empathy, all those things and more in equal measure, and that secret part of her ached just to hold him, that she might take his suffering away. But while all those feelings jockeyed for position within her mind and in her heart, a dark horse surged up from the depths and passed them all to cross her lips paramount.

"I cannot abide this. This reckless and, and, foolhardy. I won't allow it."

Indignation. Or just indignity. Anger riding atop a steed of fear, forging a path of selfish need. The only thing in this whole place that could quiet her vengeful mind; she _needed_ him. Or did she merely want to need him so that the things she felt when she was near him did not seem so avaricious and unbecoming?

"It is not _your_ decision, Inquisitor." And he looked at her now, those golden eyes not honeyed but aflame under brows set heavy with anger of his own. On his feet, he began to pace, back and forth, that caged beast, agitated and wild; all those restless behaviours suddenly making sense.

"You command my forces, and I am to have no opinion on an issue that directly challenges your ability to do so?" There it came again, those unfamiliar words, that unacquainted voice. The Inquisition.

"I command your forces, yes, but you do not command _me_, not in this. I am through with days of blind obedience."

"I will not stand idle while you risk your life, Cullen. You could _die._"

"Of course I know the risk, better than anyone! You think I choose this lightly? I _have_ to do this."

Cullen growled with frustration and turned his back on her, standing stoic at the window with folded arms, proving that he did not need layers of leather and steel to armour himself against her. The silence that followed, as cold and as sharp as the mountains themselves, seemed similarly to stretch on forever. Each moment it dragged on, she feared the divide would grow insurmountable, unscalable peaks of reticence that no tongue would reach.

"I have already seen a future without you in it," Olivia uttered softly, desperately, hoping it would bridge the ireful abyss. "I would rather not see another. The…Inquisition…needs you."

He cocked his head to the side. "Does it?"

"You stand at its heart." Her fingers gripped tightly at the desk, something solid beneath her.

Cullen turned back to the window proper. "If you had any idea what you…" he trailed off distantly, and then sighed. "I will…think on it."

The silence set in again, a little warmer than before but still tense and unyielding, with nothing left on either side to fill it. Olivia felt suddenly exhausted, the days of unrest, the hours of disquiet, and these moments of catastrophic hopelessness crashing down on her all at once. Rising to the surface, like some oily sheen, was a choking shame at being so engrossed in her own wallowing that she did not see him sinking alongside. Had she been more attentive they might have held each other afloat, but now her hands were slick and unfit to hold anything.

With a heaving sigh, she pushed herself up from her perch at the Commander's desk. "I think we both need rest. Good night, Cullen."

Cullen said nothing as she turned to go, merely stared out into the night, scratching idly at his neck. She was halfway to the door when he called out. "Inquisitor?"

Olivia paused. "Yes?"

"Do you…play chess?"

"Chess...?" she asked, perplexed. "Um. Of course."

"Perhaps you'd join me for a game some time."

"Certainly."

A new panic grabbed her as she braved the path back to her chambers.

Olivia Trevelyan had never played a game of chess in her life.


	6. Undermining

Three days came and went. The end of the third ushered in a sense of welcome finality, the ultimate sentence in a chapter that had dragged on far too long. Olivia watched from the library window as the last of the departing mages trickled out with the waning light, under close watch of a vanguard of templars, infantry and even a few clerics who just barely clouded their disdain in the interest of keeping the peace. Around a quarter of the collective opted to take their chances and leave the Inquisition's ranks, far fewer than she anticipated given the furore. Those who remained made a concerted showing of their commitment to the cause. The infirmaries had more volunteers than they could reasonably employ, many had already accepted field assignments, and the troops would be better equipped than ever for fighting Venatori magic now that the Commander could institute live fire training exercises at home. The miasma of animosity was rapidly lifting as the dust settled, a hundred disparate pieces somehow falling harmoniously into place. Even the Grand Enchanter was newly demure and respectful, apparently, though Olivia was yet to cross her path.

The house stood to see another dawn.

It was a relief to none so great as the Inquisitor, who had eked out the days tied to her desk, interred in three weeks' worth of paperwork and with just a blinking stream of servants and messengers to connect her to the outside world. Hardly the most stimulating of tasks, she pored over reports that vacillated between the painfully mundane — general building expenses and arguments over the evidently complex anatomy of a proper mortar mixture — to the disconcerting — a surge in red templar troop movements, frequent Venatori incursions, yet more Fade rift sightings. She read it all, signed it all, even the things that required neither of her, and made notes and queries on things she felt necessitated more immediate action, too numerous to count. The farce of a ball at Halamshiral neared, with not just the life of the Empress but the empire hanging in the balance, even while it seemed the country was crumbling to ruin beneath their feet. Perhaps more worringly, Varric had requested an audience, strangely pragmatic of him, and a sure sign that she should be concerned. It seemed that for every one task they conquered, forty more loomed in its shadow, pulling her in twelve different directions.

However an elaborate showing of industriousness, though, what she had really been doing was avoiding. Avoiding responsibility by burying herself in it. Avoiding the various confrontations she had, in her sleepless hours, imagined waiting outside her chamber door. Avoiding all manner of shames, entirely self-inflicted. Finally, with a night's rest behind her and a few calmer days on the immediate horizon, she'd unshackled herself from her quarters and ventured out, though gingerly, into the living world beyond the stagnant one of paper and ink and isolation.

She'd taken a late—though brief—lunch in the Great Hall, quickly reaching her fill of both the cheese plate and obsequious pandering from nobles who had apparently been clamouring for the chance to insult her intelligence with spurs soused in honey. They complimented her on the quaintness of the furnishings, on her courage for such pedestrian garb and 'common' hairstyle, on all manner of vain and vacuous subjects that meant nothing to a woman with true evils biting at her heels. Orlesians. She didn't think anything would ever make her miss the nobility of the Marches, where things were not always friendly, but they had the common decency to stab you in your front. One thing in the Orlesians' favour, at least, was that it was easy enough to slip away as they engrossed themselves in games of one-upmanship, steeped in their irrelevancy. Upstairs in the library, she sat now in a quiet alcove, grateful for the simple pleasures of a hot cup of tea and a friend with whom she need not play pretend. Finally, she could breathe.

"Nice view?" Dorian teased, busily setting out the board. "If you want to stare at pretty mages you could just…turn your head."

"Sorry," she replied with a bashful smile. "Just making sure."

"Making sure the wicked men in dresses don't set the place on fire on the way out?"

"Honestly? A little." Olivia sighed disapprovingly at her own admission. That kind of thinking could set fires as quickly as any mage. "What do you make of all this, Dorian?"

"What does the would-be Magister make of all your quaint southern mage problems? I take from that stern look that uproarious laughter is not a satisfactory reply." His moustache twitched with his smirk. "What I make of things is that this little war was a long time coming. You can't just lock people up for the simple crime of daring to be born and expect them to bring sweet rolls to tea."

"But mages _are_ dangerous, even you must admit that much."

"Certainly. So are you! With a bow or with a smile. Should we lock you away for being too pretty? You've as much control over that as mages do over their particular talents."

Olivia knit her brows together, tongued unconsciously at the hard ridge of scar tissue at the inside corner of her mouth. "Circles are all they've known. Do you not think that a sudden influx of freedoms is as much to blame for the state of things as their confinement in the first place?"

"Possibly. Having never known that kind of confinement, I, like you, can only sit here and drink tea and pontificate." Dorian shrugged. "The Magisterium is hardly a perfect example to strive towards, but the most important power for anyone to possess is that of choice. I assume you meant well, but conscripting them only inflamed an already festering sore. You answered their desperation with yet more servitude."

Though she favoured his candour, at times his lashes did sting. Deservedly so, perhaps. "So I'm no better than Alexius," Olivia mused, numb.

"That is not what I said. Power can make a demon of anyone, but mages do tend to be a little more _literal_ about it. Whatever Alexius…used to be…" Dorian started, downcast as an edge of wistfulness cut through his cocky façade, "…what he became was undeniably monstrous. You've made amends best you could; perhaps Alexius might have done the same, given the chance. It hardly matters now. I doubt this happy haze will last, of course. One problem at a time though, right? Onto the next. Now, do you want to learn this, or wax philosophical all evening? I'm perfectly inclined toward either, but if the latter, I'm going to need something a little stronger," he said, lifting his cup and swishing the contents.

With a deep breath, she nodded toward the board with grim determination. As he set things up, she plucked one of the ornate pieces up and turned it over in her fingers. All sharp edges and brutal angles, shoulders carved like wings of flame, a downward blade, a valiantly raised shield. The face, though, was blank bar two shadowed gashes etched deep into the stone helmet, chillingly inhuman. Glancing about, she saw that they were all similarly styled, emblazoned with flames while the distinguishing features had been melted away, leaving just faceless stone analogues of human shapes. With a frown, she placed the piece back where she had found it and examined the board itself, a map of rigid hexes thrice coloured, with a host of figures arranged like a tiny army before her, white to oppose the black forces Dorian commanded. No place for uncertainty. The pit of her stomach fell away into dread.

"Dorian, this seems awfully complicated." It came out more a whine than she intended.

"Chin up. It's only _slightly_ more intricate than mending a tear in the sky."

"Oh. Wonderful."

"Fear not, darling. I'll be gentle, this being your first time and all." Her blush was as reflexive as his wink and his grin, grey eyes sparkling wickedly in the light. "The basic objective is as follows: _win_. And if that's a too general an instruction, you must lay siege to the opponent's forces and capture their Divine."

Olivia stared at him humorlessly. "Capture the Divine? You can't be serious. Does this not seem in poor taste?"

"Only for the sod forced to play black. Oh look, that's me, the dastardly Tevinter, how fitting!" The mage laughed. "Besides, you know the Chantry; they are slaves to their martyrdom. Now, here," he gestured to the front row of carved robed figures, "these are your enchanters. Enchanters move forward, one space per turn in straight line. They are fodder for your war, rather inconsequential in the scheme of things. And a clear demonstration of this game's southern bastardisation." Olivia winced, but Dorian did not allow her the time to linger on the thought, moving on through the ranks. "On the ends, you have your spires. The spire may move any number of places side-to-side or diagonally."

"How does a spire move at all?"

"Like all things unexplainable: _magic_," Dorian replied with a flourish, a spark of lightning erupting between his sorcerous fingers. "Beside the spires are the knights, who are your most dashing warriors. They cut a path through anything that lies before them, provided those obstructions are within two paces and a step to the side. Though that sounds far less dramatic, doesn't it? They thrive in the thick of things. Here, in this centre line are your clerics. Note how each occupies a distinct colour; they may move any number of adjacent places, but never deviate from their assigned shade. Bound to their flocks, as it were. Such a dismal existence; life needs a little colour, don't you think? Hello? Still with me?"

"Barely."

"Good enough. Now, here at the back, is where the true power lies. Typical, yes? Sending everyone else out first to do the dirty work. The grand cleric, and the Divine. The grand cleric combines the movement of the spire and the cleric, because she's far too important to actually leave the cathedral, I suppose, so she just…brings it with her?"

Olivia laughed. "More magic? Dorian, are you sure you even know how to play this game?"

"Well, I know how _I_ play it. Anyway, at last we come to the lady of the hour. The Divine, unwieldy old nag that she is, moves just a step at a time, but in any direction. Backwards, most frequently, if you ask me; please, don't tell Cassandra I said that, I'll never hear the end of it. She is the ultimate prize, and she must rely on all of these others to protect her."

"A rather foolish gambit on her part, as it turns out," she muttered morosely.

"If it makes you feel any better, I don't think there's any contingency in the rules for an ancient magister swooping out of the sky and obliterating the board. Like I said, it's a _southern_ game. But, that does give me a fabulous idea for the next time the Commander has me pinned. Ooh, I'm all aquiver with anticipation. But I digress. Let's get on and have a fiddle, let you get a feel for how things move about."

"Are you still talking about chess?" Olivia teased.

He grinned. "Let's just see where things lead, shall we?"

It was not a delicate game, by any means, or at least she was not a delicate hand. All of the romance of strategy and guile was lost on her and in her stilted movements. Any time she fell into a stupor of forgetting, which was often, she resorted to outright mimicry until she found some footing, however unstable. Dorian did his best to coach in his special way, but the board seemed only to grow in size the more she stared at it. Her pieces, those he had not handily captured, lay scattered to the winds in disarray, no art about their maneuverings. Trying to make sense of what was happening only made her head hurt and all her knowledge slip through her fingers like sand until she wasn't sure she could even tie her shoes anymore. If chess was a dance, it was one so intricate that Olivia Trevelyan could not imagine ever grasping the steps, and apologised frequently for clomping on Dorian's toes. It was hard to know what disappointed her more: the ineptitude she felt, having always considered herself an educated woman, or the creeping acceptance that she might never take Cullen up on his invitation. But maybe that was for the best.

"How _do_ you know how to play, Dorian?" Olivia asked, apathetically shoving a cleric—or was that a spire?—across the board, caring little where it landed, not as if it mattered. "Not exactly complementary with your culture, is it?"

"Unflattering insinuations about the worth of mages aside, the underlying game of strategy is universal. The pieces themselves mean little, I could just as well replace each one with something I plucked from my arse and it wouldn't change the way the game is played, except that I might find willing partners a little scarcer."

She grimaced. "What delightful imagery."

"You prove my point." Dorian beamed. "The true game is in the reading of one's opponent, in the anticipation of attack and the managing of one's own limitations so as to mitigate the losses. It's not just a chess skill, Inquisitor, but also one of life_._ And one can learn much about a person by playing a round of chess with them."

"I dread to think what you've gleaned from me," she muttered with a scoff.

He sighed and nodded. "A little like flipping through a picture book for children, currently. But fret not, darling; we'll fill out those pages yet." Olivia could not even feign offence, blunt though he may be; she certainly could not defend any sum of sophistication. "But I think the far more important question: why _your _sudden interest in chess?"

Olivia shrugged. "I thought I should take a hobby. Something to serve as a distraction," she replied evasively, casually sipping at her tea. A Tevinter brew, specially procured for him after much haranguing of the ambassador, it was surprisingly light, neither bitter nor cloyingly spiced nor overly sweet, but simply a warm, flowery note on her tongue and then gone in a gasp. Like magic, or snowflakes.

"Ah, indeed. Hobbies and distractions are grand. And how do you like them? Six-foot-two, blonde hair, brown eyes? Oh, how did it go?" The mage squinted, tapping a long, elegant finger against his chin as he considered. "'Voice like shorn velvet, tattered and torn, tied about her wrists, held over her head; she is bound, bent, blissfully broken to his will…?'"

Or perhaps the tea was not quite gone; she choked on a swallow, liquid shooting up her nose, cheeks flushing crimson as she sputtered.

Dorian laughed. "That spirit, Cole, says the most _interesting_ things. I must say, I'd rather like to read _that_ book."

Images flashed through her mind, unrepentant, those most secret of secret thoughts, the most unseemly, the most lascivious and unspeakable, suddenly spoken aloud and not even by her own tongue, but thieved from her dreams and spread as poetic whispers among her peers. So worried about the hawks circling over her head that she never noticed the mockingbird at the window, stealing her salacious song. What else had been taken out of her?

Too incensed, too mortified was she to form a reply, and what would she even say when any reply she gave would serve as confirmation? Denial would be as good as an admission of her guilt, the flush in her cheeks and her livid pause, her gagging on her own tongue already having betrayed whatever conviction she might have mustered. She was, after all, a picture book, with pages laid bare full of imageries even a simpleton could readily interpret, and Dorian was not that. Olivia pinched the bridge of her nose against the lingering sting of the tea in her nose, swallowed the metallic remains to quench the inferno of humiliation burning up her guts. If she could not outrun it, she could at least try to slow it.

"I beg you Dorian, you must say nothing. To anyone, but least of all to…_him_." And she did, with word and tenor and forlorn gaze, with hands now clasped together upon the table, she begged with all the dignity she had left, a scraping.

"Oh, please," he replied, crossing his legs as he sat back in his chair, voice dripping with affront. She gritted her teeth at the idea that he might find cause for injury. "I like to tease, but I'm no idle gossip. All right, that's not strictly true. But I would never betray _you_. Besides, who can blame you? The man could melt the ice off a glacier." His eyes narrowed, the sly grin sliding into a quizzical purse. "Foolish question, though, um…why don't _you_ say something? You've obviously thought about it in _great_ detail."

"I couldn't. I can't." She took another sip of the tea to combat the sudden desert in her mouth, furious blush renewed at his suggestion.

"And yet you want to play games with him. Literally, and it seems, also figuratively?"

"I know," she admitted, throwing her hands up, exasperated with herself. Her mind was an endless plane of hexes, and she no clue even which piece she was to move. "I have no idea what I'm doing, Dorian. What I feel... I can't just... I'm the Inquisitor."

"Oh, I forgot they made you turn in your humanity. Silly me!"

Olivia rolled her eyes. "Dorian, I have responsibilities. There are expectations, and etiquettes."

That was the official line; the lie she told herself to stave off despair. The rigid and uncompromising reality of her position was a dependable comfort, noble and unwavering, respectable. It absolved her of the responsibility of confronting herself, her feelings, her secrets sins. It was clear from his dubious look that it was not a sufficient argument for Dorian, either. He opened his mouth to rebut, but she spoke again before his voice could reach his lips, filling the air with excuses before he could with reasons.

"There are also some…extenuating circumstances from which I should not distract. And we're at war." At war; with the world, with themselves, with each other. The Commander's confession of the other evening weighed heavily upon her mind, moated by a treacherous sea of her own shame. It was not her place, nor her right, to impose upon him as she had, to cast her nets of fear in hopes to snare or save him. He was not hers to command. Would she never learn the terrible cost of forcing her will? How much blood, how many scars would it take to remind her? "We're at war," the broken part of her echoed. "And I fear one or both of us will almost certainly be dead before it's done."

"That's a bet I aim to lose, my friend." The mage nodded and, offering a warm smile, reached across the table and placed a hand upon hers. "You and I know better than anyone that time is a fickle and fragile thing. Would you really deny yourself a moment's happiness just because it won't last forever? Nothing does, you know. Why does 'proper' weigh more than pleasure?"

Olivia sighed, vexed. "Because you and I were raised very differently. And so was he." Realisation dawned, and she gasped audibly. "Templars take vows. He may not even…" she trailed off, her last words rattling about in her chest like a whooping cough, heavy in her lungs, suffocating her slowly. He may not even want her; or if he did, be able to act without utterly compromising what he was. What was worse?

"He _used_ to be a templar. It's not like they cut off the offending parts, is it? And what exactly is problem, anyway? It's not as if 'blessed' Andstrate didn't take a fall or twenty upon Maferath's sword before things got nasty; the woman had children, for crying out loud. They do _tell_ you where babies come from down here, don't they?" Dorian laughed, and she rolled her eyes once more at his impertinent vulgarity, prompting him to raise his hands in surrender. "Fine, fine, I can see my advice is clearly unsolicited, so I'll say no more on the matter. Well, perhaps one more thing, if you'll indulge me: I wouldn't be so quick to count upon your death, darling. I happen know for a fact, you've a knight in play who'll cut a path through anything that lies before him, if it means protecting his divine."

She bolted upright, wilting lungs suddenly buoyant. "What?"

He smirked. "I told you. You can learn a lot from a game of chess."


	7. Drabbling

_A/N: Not really a chapter; just a thing that popped into my head and wouldn't leave until I exorcised it. Not like I have anything better to do than cede to my brain's whims or anything..._

* * *

><p>Ink bleeds into the fine wrinkles as he presses the quill to the page, and for a moment, he is unsure, but then pushes his hand with haste into action before the pigment is spent.<p>

_ Inquisitor,_

He pulls the hand away and inspects, brow wilting with discontent. The penmanship is perfectly serviceable, if a little blurred where it has bled, where he hesitated in the beginning, and where the subtle shake in his hand has won the war against the honesty of his lines. It is barely perceptible, but he notices and it is grating. But there is something else, a niggling in him, an undefinable wrongness, a twitch in his fingers that urges him to start again. So he does, fine point of the nib grazing the parchment where he strikes the Inquisitor through and, no room for delay, begins anew.

_ Olivia,_

The corner of his mouth curls up into a smile, an involuntary action, as all of the most candid ones are. The letters spill into one another, each one making an effortless connection to the next; a single, uninterrupted stroke from beginning to end. Elegant lines and silken curves that mask the tremor from his chains, granting him a moment's grace. Her name on his fingertips feels as he imagines the woman herself must, welcoming and willowy. Belonging. It is impossible not to think on all the things that might follow such a beginning.

He snaps the parchment up from the desk and crushes it in his leather-clad hand, sighing. He dips the quill and begins again.

_ Inquisitor,_

Broken and clumsy, shaky and forced, there is no pleasure in a word so laden with discretion. Not even a name, but just a title. A shield to hide behind, a weapon to thrust ahead. He has worn plenty of them himself, still does. Sometimes his arms feel tired for the carrying, but without, he is nothing, only exposed and defenseless. One day perhaps he would have no need for so much armour. Today is not that day, and it is a labour.

There are days when he does naught but sit at this desk and write until his hand cramps, until his arm is numb from the effort, until he can barely keep his eyes from closing. Hundreds of grieved letters of commiseration and condolence have passed through his hand, letters surely greeted with aching hearts and bitter tears, but even then, he never wanted for the words. But he wrote those numb, detached, knowing he would never have to see the faces of the women who had lost their husbands, children who had lost their mothers, parents who had lost their children. It was a duty; a grim one, a necessary one, but a duty nonetheless. This is not that. This is a need, but not a duty. It is an intimate urgency to satisfy a sudden craving, and it keeps him from satisfying another.

His mind is at its clearest when he is in command, but when he thinks of her, he is anything but in command. There are things he wants to say, and things he has to force himself from saying. Things that are not for ink and paper, not for prying eyes or strangers' hands. They are not the Commander's words but just Cullen's, a man trapped, screaming behind a wall of secrets and steel. Sometimes his armour can feel a cage.

In his uncertainty, more ink drips from the tip of the pen, splatters darkly to the page, and for a moment reminds him of blood, except blood is easier to draw. No ability required nor subtlety or prudence to thwart it. A bladed staff passionately swung, an arm too weary from weeks of battle, a shield thrown up a moment too late, a mouth overflowing with blood. If only his other thoughts came as quickly as the remembered taste of it to his tongue, the phantom pain to his lips.

He snaps the parchment up, crushes it, sighs and begins again.

_ Inquisitor,_

_ I know your time is precious. I pray neither did you waste too much of it indulging me this afternoon, nor to take my victories too severely._

The first was a vicious conquest; he had already cut a swathe through her side of the board before the extent of her falsehood grasped him. She plays like Dorian; they even cheat the same, though she with an innocence that could not be coached. The smile creeps back to his lips recalling the frustrated purse of hers; her grave looks of concentration; her fingers hovering, faltering over her pieces with her frequent indecision. The flush in her cheeks when she lost, flustered. The second game he played with a much gentler touch, ignoring the dozen or more moments he could have taken her, instead drawing out the time until the mountains swallowed the sun, just for the chance to listen to her speak, to sigh, to curse.

He snaps the parchment up, crushes it, sighs.

_ Inquisitor,_

_ Thank you. Another game soon, perhaps?_

_ Commander Cullen_

He drops the quill into the pot. Perfectly serviceable. Laden with discretion. A weapon, slipped into a paper sheath, cannot cut.


	8. Stifling

Summer had an unmistakable perfume. Flowers overflowed in the market square; sweet pea and lilies, wild roses and gardenia, those most popular among young brides. Their saccharine fragrance mingled on salt-stung breezes that billowed across the sparkling Amarathine. Briny ocean waves all entangled with strings of giant kelp smashed upon the shore, quenching sun-scorched rock. Outside the city, the leas sweltered; a bouquet of dusty, parched earth and dry plains grasses, which spread their seed on the wind and lazed into dormancy ahead of the winter freeze. A magical fusion of earth and sea and sky, coalescing into the incense of life.

But then the wind died.

The pungent clime took hold six days ago, those cool ocean breezes barely more than a whisper in the grass, the smashing waves reduced to a gentle lap, the flowers wilting morosely in their carts under a sun unrestrained by even a single cloud. Fishing boats sat idle at the docks, none eager to make the arduous trip to deeper waters knowing their bounties would broil and rot back at port. It was the longest heat spell in recent memory; the longest ever to hear some tell it, a declaration argued vehemently by the old guard who recalled a particular summer of forty years passed, so dry and so hot that the skies turned vengeful and darkened with smoke from wild fires that burned up all of the Vimmarks.

The mages, some said; it was the mages responsible for the heat, stealing up the winds with their magic. The Maker, others whispered; it was a punishment for impiety, for the war, for breaking apart his Bride's ministry and for surrendering to sin and vice. Portentous murmurings crept through the city that the Divine had a plan to end the war; a great purge, they said. She'd summoned them all together, and planned to cleanse the faithless in the righteous fire of the penitent. In either case, citizens flocked to the Chantry, which pulsed with prayer every day from first light until sunset. They occupied every pew, spilled out into the atrium and the garden, crowded about the library. Hundreds of perspiring bodies pressed together; the stench was toe-curling. The Revered Mother was unsparing with the incense, and lay sisters stood at the head of the congregation with large fans and took shifts in waving them, until fights began to break out over position nearest to the musty breeze. The brothers ejected the agitators, and things would settle for a time, but the heat made people wild and irritable. With much work to do, Olivia left her desk in the library and set up in a tiny attic space near the top of the disused bell tower.

Up there, the heat was stifling. Instead of flowers and the sea, she was drowning in her own cloying musk, muddled with a punch of ink and vellum that had grown clammy with her perspirations, and the acridity of stale smoke that permeated every tome in every stack. Each breath of the stagnant attic air was hot tar in her lungs, viscous and strangling, and the tiny windows hung open uselessly with no breeze to draw in. Even stripped out of her coat, there was little relief from the dank humidity. Her scalp crawled with sweat; it soaked her hair at her neck and snaked down her down her back and chest in maddening beads, gluing her blouse to her skin with repulsive, chafing tenacity. The Sisters refilled her water basin regularly, as if she was some stray cat whose presence they tolerated because she kept the mice at bay. Were it not for the frequent interruptions, she might have taken complete leave of decency and disrobed right down to her smalls. What she would not give for a reprieve.

It was not just the physical discomfort of the torrid space. In four days, she had only managed to eke out the work of two. Her concentration had wilted like the plants in the garden, all the water in the world not enough to perk her up. Though she knew the Chant better than the lines of her own face, the quill was unruly, and refused to make the letters she commanded. It seemed that the knife did more work, dulled point in her left hand scraping out the ink that the right hand pitilessly wasted on nonsense.

"Make me to rest in the warmest places," she muttered as she carefully forced the shape of each letter through her hand. She laughed as she wiped her forehead with an already soaked sleeve. "Consider my heart steeled, dear Maker."

She had not made it through the end of the twelfth verse when a timid knock sounded at the door. Olivia continued about her work as it groaned ajar, expecting the sloshing of water as they filled the basin. Instead, the knock came again, a little louder than before, more creaking as the door opened wider.

"A-apologies, serah," Sister Hadley stammered, fragile voice of voice and hovering nervously, like a broken-winged songbird hoping to avoid the cat's notice. "A v-visitor. Down in the g-garden…"

"Half the city is in the garden, Sister Hadley," Olivia answered distractedly, cursing under her breath as the ink erred once more, and hurriedly scraping at the mark before it could set. "Should I visit with them all?"

"N-no, serah. The Bann…"

"Father?" Olivia jolted up, suddenly alert. She dropped the pen and knife into the rest and pushed back from her desk. "Perhaps you might lead with that next time, Sister." After a quick stretch of her aching back, she went to the basin and scooped up a handful of water, splashing it over her face. Warm, but it was some relief. She paused and peered sidelong at the timid woman. "You may go," she said, patting her face and neck dry with a cloth.

The sister bowed low and backed out, closing the door. Olivia sighed. Between the heat and tedium and the sister's flapping, her teeth were sharper than usual, but the truth was she was grateful for the distraction. It felt forever since she had had a proper conversation with someone other than her shadow, and it seemed she was woefully out of practice. With a disgusted glower, she shrugged her prickly coat on and worked the buttons as she headed down the rickety old stairs of the tower.

The miasma of the throngs in the chantry was as good as any wall, her eyes watering the moment she slammed into it, but against instinct to run back up to escape it, she took a deep breath and made a determined line for the side door. Every time she had to brush against a sweaty body, she cringed, skin crawling even inside the protection of her coat. Thoughts of slippery bare skin and matted wet hair rubbing against her turned her stomach. With the hold on her lungs failing and nostrils twitching anxiously, she forced a polite smile to her lips to excuse her urgent shoving. Finally, she laid a hand on the handle and pushed through, gasping. The hot air outside was fresher, but hardly refreshing.

She found father in the garden as promised. At over six feet, broad shouldered and a wild mane of peppered black hair, he cut an imposing figure amongst the sagging masses. Arms carved from years of physical labour folded across his barrel chest, he looked a man of half his years, and steely eyes were ever hawk-like in their intensity. They softened just a little as they found her, and despite a mask of beard, it was clear that he was smiling. So much as he ever did.

"Apparently Ostwick is feeling very pious," he grumbled as she neared.

Olivia laughed and craned up to kiss his cheek. "If they can pray this weather away, let them be."

The Bann grunted and nodded behind him, toward the rear path. She looped an arm through his and leaned against him as they began to stroll, those piercing eyes wordlessly dispersing the loitering crowds that blocked their passage. As they walked, she rested her head upon his shoulder the way she had ever since she was tall enough to do so, all the sweeter for the way she knew it embarrassed him, and she smirked at his quiet groan.

They followed the path through the despondent vegetable garden and to the gate at the courtyard between the chantry proper and the monastery at the rear. The yard used to thrum with chants of war and the scuffle of feet, of wooden training weapons clashing against shields and the brothers barking commands. Now it sat empty, ragged weeds shooting up between pavers that had grown black with no feet to burnish them. As war unfurled its banners across the Marches, most of the boys evacuated to the far more defensible monastery in Wycome. The elder ones hastened through their Vigils, and likely rushed to the Maker's side. Only a handful remained, scholars and solitary caretakers, those whose talent or taste for bloodshed had run dry.

"You've heard about the Conclave."

"Of course. Though popular opinion seems to be that it's less a 'Conclave' and more a 'March.'"

"You should hope not."

"Why would I care—?" she began with a laugh, but her father possessed a great talent for saying much without saying a word, and with one glance into those stormy eyes, she found it suddenly less funny. "No."

"Olivia," he said in his stern way, his silencing way; the way that used to turn her knees to jelly when she was a child and he caught her stealing sweets from the larder before dinner. But she was not eight years old anymore.

Olivia stopped dead, releasing his arm and folding hers across her chest. She was her father's daughter, digging her heels in and preparing for the fight. "Father, no. That's absurd. I can't leave. I have a thousand things I need to do. The _esteemed_ Mother in Markham is insufferably impatient. Let Everett and Aidan go. Aren't they _obligated_ to?"

"Everett was on his way, but has gotten caught up in little Vael's crusade. We've no word from Aidan." The Bann frowned briefly. "I'm sure he'll be there. But just in case he—"

Olivia was barely listening, too caught up in her own affront to be concerned at _why_ her brothers were neglecting a duty that was rightfully theirs. "Lydia, then. She's practically the Revered Mother's shadow; surely, she would be a more suitable choice. Maker's breath, even Tillie—" Even as her frantic rambling spilled out, she knew the answer, but it was only confirmed when she noticed her father's gaze drop to the ground. She shook her head. "Mother." The word felt like a curse on her lips.

"It may be dangerous," he said. Only in her father's mind could that seem a reasonable explanation for sending her halfway across the continent to a martial assembly. Only in this _family._

"And I'm the expendable one," she spat sourly.

The Bann's head shot up. "No," he said firmly, a gravelly mix of anger and ardor. With a hand that still seemed so large to her despite her years, he reached up and cupped her chin, rough skin of his thumb just barely stroking the mess of gnarled flesh at her jaw. "You're the capable one."

Olivia jerked her head away, scowling. Perhaps he believed it, but his placation had the opposite effect, her blood boiling through her veins with thunderous savagery. All her adult life he had told her to follow her own path, and so she had, even when she knew she travelled a road paved with discontent. She chose education and independence, refused to bind herself to a life of servitude, refused to marry herself to the Maker, and that effectively made her a tramp in her mother's eyes. But they tolerated her choices because she was securely couched in denial. She did not have to bind herself to anything because she always had been, with just enough slack in the rope to let her run with the illusion of freedom. They would always yank her back when she strayed too far.

Her head suddenly throbbed, her eyes stung from the sweat, and her patience had long since simmered away into nothing. This damned heat. She rubbed at her eyes, but the ink on her fingers only caused them to sting more, and as she cursed quietly, she pulled her hand away and held it out to show him the black stains. "Look. Look at this. This is my only stake in this war, father. These idiots burn every book they come across and it falls to me to piece it all back together. Do you know how many copies of the Chant alone I've made since Wintermarch?"

"And perhaps that _is_ your purpose. Wars are won in the annals of history. Order must be restored. The Chantry _must be restored_. No one is asking you to save the world, Livvy. Just to stand. Because Trevelyans—"

"—serve the Maker, I know," she finished with a sigh. She was a Trevelyan, and she was eight years old again, weak in the knees and paralysed by guilt, and the leash was tugging. "Very well, Papa."

The Bann smiled and clapped his hands down on her shoulders, gave a light squeeze. "That's my girl. You'll ship to Highever in two days."

Feeling thoroughly defeated, Olivia threw her head back and stared up at the sky. It seemed so big, so far away, so impossibly empty. "At least it's cold in Ferelden."

"And smells of dog," he added. And actually _laughed_.


	9. Unmasking

The woollen collar of his too-tight jacket chafed in a most infuriating way, his skin pricked raw for his scratching. It constricted across his chest, or maybe that was just the anxiety pressing upon him. The borrowed sword in his hand felt as foreign as the surrounds, and poorly balanced, not intended for use; an ornament to dangle from the belt of a nobleman who made all his cuts with his tongue. With luck, he would not need to use it.

Cullen had scarcely felt more useless. A lion in a den of asps; pinned down, they reared up in a grand display, but he could not spare the roar. The rattle and howl of conflict rung out through the palace, and the ballroom ran red with regal blood, but the greater conflict flared up inside of him: a battle between his primal instinct to protect her, and his sworn duty to serve her. A voice in him told him to be calm, reminded him that she was not alone, of the myriad ways she had already cheated far surer deaths. But tell that to the hands that shook with idle frustration, that clenched with painful might into impotent fists at his sides and around the hilt of an impotent blade, or to the cold vice of iron dread clamped around his spine, the only thing paralysing him against the ruthless urge to march.

Duty won the war.

He barked his commands with a clarity that belied the innumerable conflicts that raged ceaselessly within him, playing a gambit with his soldiers' lives to protect a man who an hour ago would just as soon have ended them as allied with them had it proved convenient to do so. There was no honour here, no integrity, just a precariously balanced scale of mutual benefit. They could not lose Gaspard, not now, not when the fate of the empire fell at his feet. And so there Cullen sat, dug into a foxhole with the most venomous snake, with his ear pressed to the door listening to the resonance of a battle he should be fighting. Waiting. It had been far too long already.

"This night has gone far better than I could even have hoped." Gaspard laughed suddenly, breaking the tense silence that had settled over the group, breaking Cullen's concentration at the door. "Celene, dead! Who would have thought the Inquisitor so adept at The Game?"

The Duke laughed once more, but drew quickly silent as he gripped his chin and tapped a finger thoughtfully against the cheek of his garish bronze mask. Behind, his shaded eyes drew narrow and vicious with deliberation.

"Think what a union we would make. The might of Orlais under my robust leadership, bolstered by the influence of the Inquisition. The fortune of her position adequately undoes her otherwise low birth. And she is tolerable to look at, in a quaint, Marcher sort of fashion. Fine hips, though. _Quite_ ridable." The sound that escaped him was nothing short of filthy; the Duke forgot himself in his glee and close quarters. "Perhaps she will be better behaved than my first wife. Or at least more liable to be tamed."

It was unbecoming of a man of the Commander's station, this feeling, this…_jealousy_. Maker's breath, but he was, and he had never felt its like. It was a wild fire in his veins, the smoke of his fury a thick fog, and he could smell it, the sulphurous tang of rivalry smarting in his nostrils. It oozed like grease into his hinges so that he had to struggle to keep himself contained. Teeth gritting, Cullen's fingers groaned around the hilt of a blade that he promptly imagined driving through the Gaspard's gut.

As a tired aside, the Duke added, "Of course, your loyalty would not go unrewarded, Commander."

There was no safe reply in him, and so Cullen remained silent. His pulse thundered his ears, throbbed painfully at his temple—_boom-boom, boom-boom_—like a grim countdown of each second squandered on this bastard they so badly needed. Twenty. _Boom-boom._ Gaspard wittered on, perfectly at ease and joking with his personal guards. Fifty. _Boom-boom._ Cullen pressed his ear harder against the door so that he might not hear what was said this side of it. Ninety. _Boom-boom._ Things seemed quieter; then a rumbling of footsteps. Hundred-fifty. _Boom-boom._ Shouts in the hall, but he could not make out the muffled Orlesian accent. Two hundred. _Boom-boom._ The Commander threw a palm up, hissed for silence. Two-twenty-five. _Boom-boo—_

Not his pulse, but a fist pounding against a door, somewhere nearby. Cullen shot a glance to his two men; a twitch of his finger and their weapons were at hand. _Boom-boom._ Closer now; the rattle of a door swinging violently open. Gaspard leapt from the desk on which he sat at leisure, staggered backward into the bookshelf at the rear wall, and there he cowered under shelter of his guards. _Boom-boom-boom_. Closer still; the next room down. Cullen threw his back to the wall, adjusted his grip on the hilt. Shadows danced in the crack of light at his feet. Muscles twitching; there was a taste, a tingle of magic in the air.

_Boom-boom-boom._

The handle turned, the door loosened. A figure emerged in the doorway, and instinct took over; Cullen's arm snapped out, grabbed a handful of uniform. A flash of gold and green; trappings of the Imperial guard, but that meant little in this place of disguises. Twisting into a firm hold, he shoved forward with his whole weight, ramming with brutal force to pin the guard against the door frame, elbow crushed into the man's neck while the blade hand jabbed threateningly into his side. The whites of the guard's eyes shone with panic behind a scratched and dented mask, a whimpering gurgle leaking from his throat as he bucked uselessly against Cullen's bulk.

"Well, there go any designs I might have had for sneaking into your quarters."

The Commander's head snapped to the side at the sound of Dorian's voice. The mage smiled cheerfully, leaning against the wall with casual aplomb, a handful of Inquisition soldiers at his flank. Still in the grip of an adrenal haze, heart pounding, chest heaving, Cullen's gaze flicked back to the guard who had all but stopped struggling, whose eyes had begun to droop lazily, body sag. His own body refused to uncoil.

"The Inquisitor…?" It rasped out of him on the back of a heavy breath, the only thought he could manage. Barely a complete thought at all.

"Sent me to fetch you. The Duchess is dead. Formalities await." Dorian nodded toward the guard. "Do let the lad go, Commander. Unless you want to spend the rest of the evening cleaning his shit off your boots."

Cullen nodded slowly, exhaled, and one by one, his tensed muscles began to slacken. The guard slumped to the floor, choking gasps in between coughs. Glowering, Cullen tossed Gaspard's worthless blade across the room, sent it clattering to the floor at the man's feet.

Gaspard snatched it up as he rose, his viperous stare settled on the Commander as he attached it to his belt. He smirked, adjusting his unkempt vest. "If you gentlemen will excuse me, it appears I have an empire to claim."

Trailed closely by his bodyguards, he pushed brusquely through the doorway, stepping without care over the soldier sprawled on the ground. The Duke could not conceal the spring in his step, bouncing down the hall with all the giddy excitement of a child about to open a new toy on his name-day.

Cullen reached out a hand to the guard at his feet, who looked up at him dubiously, but eventually accepted the help up. The pair of his remaining soldiers filed out of the room behind him, and the Commander fell in beside Dorian and Brand, one of his captains, who rattled through a status report as they went.

"Six of ours dead, sir. Twelve Imps. And a pair of lesser noblemen who got in the way, but the Ambassador says no great loss; shouldn't affect our relations here."

"Wounded?"

"Handful. None serious, though. Thing is, sir, they got the jump on us. One we had 'em pinned, there weren't much to 'em, Commander."

"Are we quite sure they're all accounted for?"

"It's Orlais, sir," Brand said, with a helpless shrug. "But, ah, the ballroom is secure," the captain added quickly, "and we got a sweep underway. If there's any more of 'em to be found, we'll find 'em."

Cullen shook his head, staying his irritation. He could not wait to put this place behind him. "That will be all, Captain."

Brand skipped ahead a few paces and turned to salute, then broke into a jog as he headed off to the front courtyard to join the patrol.

Cullen and Dorian continued on to the ballroom, which was teeming with revellers who danced and drank with merry apathy. It was stuffy and loud, stunk of powdered wigs and the odious clashing of all the various oils that the Orlesian aristocracy bathed in without restraint. Almost immediately, Cullen found himself swarmed, pinned down by the same group of insufferable sycophants who had clung to him all evening, all carrying on as if nothing had happened. They pawed at him with their grossly manicured hands, hands that had never seen a day of hardship in their lives but were none the less filthy with the stains of bloody deceit. He recoiled.

"Come dance, Commander!"

"Yes! You must! Beauty is wasted where no one can see it!"

He threw a pleading look to Dorian, whose reply was to bow with a flourish. "Do try to have some fun, Commander!" he said, and left. Grinning.

The Commander glared at the mage's back, the pounding in his temples renewed with vengeance. His admirers nattered, buzzing in his ear like mosquitoes only harder to swat away, following him each time he tried to free himself. A waiter passed with a tray of drinks, and he grabbed a glass and took a long, breathless drink. It was all he could do to choke down the vitriolic ripostes that threatened to vomit out of his mouth. The things he must endure in the name of diplomacy. This whole place made no sense to him at all.

A grand cheer erupted, then, as Gaspard entered the ballroom. The new Emperor threw his hands up in the air, soaking in his victory and adulation with ludicrous pomp. Platitudes and empty promises spilled from his lips, and the nobility gorged themselves readily on his gilded lies all swathed in wire and barbs that cut with the swallow.

An Empress lay dead, and the world danced on, unmoved. A new game had begun.

But all Cullen could focus on was the sight of the Inquisitor at his side. She was barely recognisable; not just the stately raiment or the elaborate braids in her hair, or the ruby red of her painted lips or the borrowed jewels that dripped from her fingers in an ostentatious showing of orchestrated affluence. There was a terrifying power about the way she moved, the way she stood, aloof and untouchable. A woman who needed nothing, who wanted for nothing; a woman wanted by all. All at once, his gut churned, and he became aware of the overly-sweet aftertaste of the brew he had just imbibed far too freely, felt it rising in the back of his throat.

He continued to watch, long after the address was over and the celebration resumed. Watched the way Gaspard touched her arm with gross familiarity as they talked. Watched how he hovered possessively, predatory, as if warning the hyenas off from his quarry. Watched as they flocked to her, as if she was a beacon, a dazzling light in a realm of living shadows. Watched the delicate curve of her blood red smile, and cold eyes that pitched sugared daggers with deadly precision. It was a captivating but frightening dance she performed, one of charm and wit, of slight and sleight-of-hand. Such practiced grace. Such self-possession. A ringing reminder of her noble birth, and of the shepherding touch of the Left Hand at her back. She seemed perfectly at home. And he never more distant from her.

But then from across the room he commanded her attention, and an affectionate spark from her golden blue stare ignited in him a roaring fire. She gifted him a furtive smile, and a rushing silence drowned out everything but the thunderous din of his quickening pulse. It was an intimate suggestion of the woman behind the masquerade, and he felt his own mask slipping carelessly away. All that remained was a familiar ache and a very real sensation of falling. Cullen broke first, looking away, laughing; a nervous twitch of a thing, uncontrolled, unexpected. Under his collar, his neck tingled, a rippling wave of hundred thousand hot little pinpricks flooding across his flesh.

By the time he looked back, she had disappeared, and reality hurried back in with the force of a body slamming into the ground. He did not excuse himself, was barely even aware that he was moving at all until one of the obsequious scavengers clutched at his arm. 'Commander? Where are you going, Commander?' He tore free and filled the grabby hand with his empty cup, then pushed off into the crowd.

The voices drew shriller as he put more distance behind him. It was the same primal instinct from before that drove him, a dire urge to protect her, only now he was unhindered. The Duke's base comments echoed through the dark spaces of his mind, tempting ancient anger to the fore. Florianne might be dead but she was no less in danger; the Inquisitor's danger was constant. He scanned the muted crowd for flashes of red. There was Cassandra, standing alone with a scowl even more severe than his own. And Josephine, ever the diplomat, hard at work among a large group of nobles. Dorian and Leliana danced together in the centre of the floor; wait, was she _smiling_? Unsettling.

Turning in place, a frown crept over his features. No sign of the Inquisitor anywhere. Cullen sighed. All about him was just a sea of featureless faces, masks that could not hide duplicitous eyes that brimmed with contempt, or forked tongues that lashed out from behind fangs dripping venomous scorn. To think that six of his men had died tonight in the defence of this empire of deceivers. It felt like losing. It felt personal. But it was neither of those things, he reminded himself. It was just _war_, and many more would be lost for far less before it was over. War required a degree of ruthlessness. It required detachment; the gulf between _want_ and _need_ was necessarily unnavigable.

A gust of cool air washed over him, then. He tipped his head toward the open door, to the beckoning call of a billowing curtain, a siren song of sweet freedom from the oppressiveness of the room. And the splash of red behind it. He moved with haste, like a drowning man swimming for his life, lungs growing ever thirsty as he neared the surface until finally…

Relief.

Things, he realised, often looked different from afar. Her regal attire was not the picture of perfection it had seemed from the back of the room. It was tousled, and torn at the shoulder, splotched with dirt and grass stains, some others that were possibly blood. The braids in her hair were falling apart, a mess of untidy strands spilling down her neck and about her shoulders. She had since removed her gloves, stuffed them without care into her pocket and all the jewels along with. As he joined her at the balcony railing, he noticed a deep red smear on the back of her hand, alarming at first, until he realised that precisely matched the remnant colour at the edge of her naked lips.

"There you are," he said softly, smiling. And it _was_ her; perfectly familiar, completely unmasked. This was the woman for whom his heart trembled, whom his arms yearned to hold, and for whom he forewent slept to spare her the menace of his haunted dreams. The woman from whom his fears kept him at arm's length. The woman who, when he looked at her, made it impossible to remember why he was fighting at all. Not when the prospect of losing this chance was far more terrifying than anything lurking in his past.

"I thought my mother was hard to please. She's positively delightful by comparison," she said; she sounded exhausted. "I couldn't stand another minute in there."

"Nor I," Cullen replied. "Are you all right?" It took a great deal of self-control not to reach out and untangle her hair from her collar.

Olivia tossed him a quick look that revealed little, followed by the slighest of shrugs. "Things are what they are. Gaspard will be trouble, I'm sure."

"You don't know the half of it," he said, more than a little bitterly. Cullen shook his head at her quizzical look.

With a sigh, she said, "I do seem to have a knack for making things as difficult as possible."

"Don't worry about Gaspard. For now, we need him. He stands the best chance of uniting the factions here in Orlais. And if he becomes a problem, we'll deal with him."

"As if it's just that easy. Alarming, really. To think that the Inquisition has that kind of power."

"Perhaps. But if anyone must, better that we have it than it fall to someone else." Cullen kicked at the stone railing, mulling. He knew he didn't need to say it. At least, he thought he knew. Maybe he didn't. Power made for strange bedfellows, after all; it was just the thing he could imagine Josephine and Leliana advocating. "Just, promise me you won't…" That prickling in his neck again; he scratched at it anxiously. "That you won't accept anything he might…offer."

"What do you mean?" She turned, bemused. "Are _you_ all right?"

"Yes. Well…I mean, I am, it's just… Inqui—" Cullen exhaled a shaky breath. "Olivia…"

The way she smiled when he said her name, it made it hard to think. Palms sweating inside his gloves; hands shaking, but not in the usual way. He grabbed the railing tightly, not knowing what else to do with them, and felt suddenly as if he'd been in this position before. Things had not gotten easier with time. Music wafted on the night breeze, filling a silence that he seemingly could not. The quiet dragged on, grew more awkward, while his thoughts grew more jumbled, more panicked, and her bemusement sank into something more uneasy. Spiralling.

"I just…" he started, but had nothing to follow it. Had _too much_ to follow it. Where even to begin? As was always the way when it came to her, he merely looked away, and shook his head in defeat.

"Cullen..."

He felt her arm slink under his, and he turned his head slowly, eyes fixed on his hand as she tugged at his glove, loosening digit by digit until with a final pull the whole thing tore off. Cold fingers laced between his and gently squeezed; fingers callused and worn, the nails dirty and ragged from weeks of battle. _Her_ fingers, unmistakable. His own responded in kind, closing around her hand, which felt so small and strangely delicate in his grasp. So worth protecting. A tentative smile twitched at his lip. Her body was a precious warmth against his side; his timid heart a shiver in his chest. When finally he felt brave enough to look up, he tumbled head first into that shimmering clear lake of her eyes with no heed for his survival. It was only a sweet relief.

"I know," is all she said.


	10. Gathering

_A/N: I just wanted to take a sec to thank everyone who is inexplicably still following along with what is turning into the slowest slow burn that ever slow burned. :P Thank you for the messages of support, the comments and follows. It's a lot of fun-also a lot of frustration-for me to get back into the habit of writing again, and frankly, daunting as hell to keep going at times, but even a single word of encouragement is sometimes all it takes. This whole thing would be a lot easier if I could just show you my brain. Grosser, maybe, but... Okay, up-shutting now. Thanks a bunch! 3_

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><p>Every step was a struggle, on knees that ached and thighs that burned with the effort of pushing weary muscles through deep snow. And the weight. Not the weight of a woman, but the burden of a body; heavy in his arms and unwieldy, clinging to life by the barest of threads. Hard to hold, but harder not to, when the whole world's survival hinged on that of the Herald. She was awake just enough to writhe against him, to trash with the last of her energy, enough that he would lose his grip, have to stop and readjust to stop her slipping. Slipping away…<p>

He did not know then what she would become. Not to the world, and not to him; he was still unclear on the last. Only that she was imperative. Only that she had stirred up something in him he thought long dead. She was dying in his arms, and it was bringing him back to life.

Almost three months had passed since that night, when she brought the wrath of the mountain down. Tonight she had spared them from it.

They were only a few hours from Skyhold when she had insisted they wait. Something to do with the birds and the cold; it made little sense to him, but she was adamant that they would not make it before the weather in the mountains turned. Better to camp and make the return push on the morrow. Grudgingly, in spite of clear skies and an impatience to be home, he had his men—the handful he had not left behind as a 'token of the Inquisition's commitment to the new crown'; sanctioned scouts—set a camp at the base of the mountains.

The storm broke just before sundown.

It built out of nothing, out of wisps and whispers in the highest crags of ice, twisting and turning into a roiling mantle of dense grey cloud that fell vengefully from the heavens as a blizzard that last for several hours. Nestled in the foothills, the inhospitable winter landscape offered a little protection from the icy wind that spilled down the mountain passes. It ripped at the tents with menace, and the trees groaned and swayed like an army of grey ghosts haunting the winter gloom, while they huddled in their shelters, waiting it out.

The tent he shared with Blackwall and Dorian, and the recruits Garrett and Vaughn, was cramped but warm, at least. While the other men passed the time with a flask and hands of cards, Cullen passed it laid out on a bedroll, drifting in and out a fitful sleep. It was a long time since he had been able to sleep comfortably in shared quarters. He feared what might come out of him, in the night, in the dark, when his guard was down and his control was gone. Whispers and the sidelong glances, alienation and rumour; such was the penance for a full night's sleep.

It was late when finally rose, when the wracking sound of the wind had tapered off and quiet descended over the camp. Dorian remained, now sprawled and snoring at the back of the tent; Blackwall and the recruits were gone. The snow had been kicked away from the tent flap, and tracks disappeared out into the forest. Similar tracks led out from three of the other tents. A half dozen of them must have taken to the watch, he guessed. Before he left, he stoked at the fire until it sparked back to life, and then fetched his sword and ventured out into the woods via unspoiled snow to join them.

There was an eeriness about the icy hush. Out here in the dark, outside the bounds of the campfire's reach, the world was so still, so empty. There was no sign of the turmoil that wracked the land, the dark and the cloud swallowing even the scar in the sky. And quiet; so much so he could almost hear each single snow flake as it hit the ground. Every now and then, a short, sharp whistle would puncture the silence, and five more just like it would echo after from somewhere out among the trees, and then fade back into nothing. In the spaces between those scout calls, he felt like the last man left alive.

The wind had dulled from a howl into a whimper. It slunk like an interloper, slithering in between the snow-dusted trees; it licked at his ears and down his neck, cold, like the breath of the Maker himself. Cullen dropped his chin to his chest, folded his arms and shrugged deeper into his furs, but refused to kowtow to the shiver that pricked at his spine. How he hated the cold, and the ache it inspired in his bones. It was a long time since he had spent so much time in the elements. As a child even a small trip had seemed a great adventure. Perhaps too many years in Circles had left him soft, or his years were catching up with him. A nomadic life like the one Blackwall led seemed the least appealing thing in the world, especially when it seemed he only ever moved from one battle on to the next with no reprieve.

It was still strange just being back in Ferelden again. Home, but not. Somehow right and wrong all at once and he was beginning to doubt it would ever feel any different. Nothing was as it used to be, not the country, not the man. Skyhold above him, Lake Calenhad beside him, Honnleath always at his back and there was he just standing in the centre, weathering the storm. And he was so tired of the storm. It wasn't enough to just keep on surviving anymore. For now he had the Inquisition, but was that all there was? If he was to finally be a free man, he did not want to squander that freedom, burning up in the flames of a battle he feared would not abate until there was nothing left of him.

There might not be, anyway, the way his tainted blood shredded through his veins. He was a long way from freedom.

Trapped in his thoughts and buried in his cloak, he did not hear her approach, but when he turned his head there she was, emerged out of the darkness as though she were made of it, so light of foot she barely left a trail behind her. With her bow strapped at her back and draped in leathers, cast in the steely light of winter, her silhouette took on a haunting air that evoked an ancient savagery. Other-worldly. And so she was, this woman who walked from the Fade; straight out of the realm of dreams. Was she even real at all? Was any of this? Sometimes it was hard to reconcile. Perhaps Cullen Rutherford was long dead and this life he lived was just his confused spirit echoing through the Fade. A grim thought.

"You're supposed to be asleep."

"I'm supposed to be a lot of things," she answered. There was a flavour of melancholy in almost everything she said, sometimes even when she laughed, that pained him. Like a too-clear reflection he did not wish to see. "I've heard it said that if you can't sleep at night, it's because you're awake in someone else's dreams." Olivia tilted her head toward him, and he saw the shadow of her brow arch. "Not yours, then."

"Not this time," he replied with a laugh. A hot blush bloomed in his cheeks.

"Dorian's, then."

Cullen shook his head. "I dare not guess at who it is keeping me awake."

"Also Dorian."

All he could muster was a nervous stammer as he tried to think of anything to say, but it was mercifully broken as another round of whistles broke the air. Only four answered. Cullen paused, listening a few moments longer, but nothing came. Likely he was too far to hear, he surmised; the sound caught and carried away on the wind, or they had been muddled together.

"So… We haven't talked since…"

"I know," he replied, following her voice back from distraction. The awkwardness of the last five days was not certainly lost on him. Trying to forget the feel of their fingers entwined, and overcompensating by barely looking at her at all, for fear someone would notice. Trying to pretend that nothing had changed; not even sure if anything _had_. Part of the reason he was so anxious to be done with the travelling.

"I thought it best to wait, until we were back at Skyhold, and things had settled. But things are never settled. There's always…_something_. And this might be as much privacy as we're going to get."

He huffed out a laugh. "Clandestine talks in the wilderness, under cover of darkness? It's not _exactly_ how I imagined… Not that I really 'imagined' anything. I haven't thought about it extensively, that is." Maker's _breath_.

Olivia chuckled quietly. "I, on the other hand, have spent more time than I dare admit thinking about it. About what I should say to you, I mean; or what I want to say, because they aren't necessarily the same thing. And I just keep going around in circles, and it's exhausting." Even now she appeared to be struggling to put her thoughts in order. "The thing is, Cullen: I have always done the thing that was expected, or asked of me_._ That's how my father raised me and it's why I'm even here in the first place. Because Trevelyans...we serve.

"But I don't know what the Maker wants with me anymore. I think maybe I never did." Olivia kicked idly at the snow as she spoke. "I feel as if I am adrift at sea with no stars to guide me. I have a strong idea of where I'm going now, and where I need to be. I didn't before, but I'm getting there. But then, there you are, like some light on the shore, and I feel drawn to you. But it's frightening, because this is land I have never tread before." She sighed in defeat. "I told you I'd spent too much time thinking about this."

The gravity in her tone was too great a pressure upon his chest for his own voice to rise against, so Cullen stood mute, parsing every word for all potential meaning. It sounded less an admission, and more an apology; he felt suddenly as though he was sinking.

"As Inquisitor, the _right_ thing to do would be to put my feelings aside, and just stay the course. That's what expected. B—"

"Because you serve," he finished for her, a little sourly. Though his argumentative heart begged to be heard, instead he nodded, or shrugged; too numb to really know which. It didn't matter; she was right, and he had always known it. A fool part of him dared to hope that things might be different now, but though he had changed and the world along with him, the one thing that remained constant was the pull of obligation.

"Yes. But Cullen—"

The pierce of a whistle punctuated her thought, long and clear and wild; a distinct warning, originating somewhere to the southeast, where the Imperial Highway cut into the mountains. A gurgling yell followed soon after, high of pitch and wet with anguish.

She had already begun to move, but the Commander snapped an arm out and grabbed her by the hand, pulled her back. "No. Get back to camp. Wake the others and wait there. _Wait,_" he ordered, and took off running before she had time to argue.

War was his obligation, and it seemed the only thing of hers that he need carry anymore.


End file.
